Episode 41 Wedding Cakes
Written and produced by Twinkle VanWinkle

Interview between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate producer, Listen!
Karen Casias, highly rated baker, Angie’s List, Columbus, Ohio
March 24, 2009

Twinkle VanWinkle: First of all, how do you begin the process of creating a wedding cake?
Karen Casias: Well, first of all, after they call me, then I suggest that we get together. Usually I like to go to their house. I’ll bring a satchel bag of all my Wilton cake albums. Those are books you can get. I don’t know if you have ever seen those Wilton cake books. That’s the king of cake decorating for wedding cakes. So I have a collection of those and I have pictures of cakes I have already done. As I told you, I have an album of my own cakes. Not everything. I’d have to bring a wheelbarrow for that. Sometimes when people live faraway, I’ve had girls say, “Let’s just meet at McDonald’s over coffee,” and that sounds good or we’ll meet at Bob Evans or whatever. We just get together and talk. I like to go to them and we discuss what they would like. Then I start getting together the supplies. Sometimes I have to order plates or separators or something I don’t already have, like a fountain or whatever. I usually have everything that they need. Every now and then somebody wants something that I don’t have in my stash.

TVW: Where do you come up with the designs?
Casias: Again from those Wilton books. He kind of, like I said, is the king of cake decorating. A lot of times the bride will say, “Here’s a picture of my grandmother’s cake, or my mother’s cake. Can you duplicate that or come close to that?” And I’ll say yes or no. Usually it’s yes, depending on how it looks. A lot of time times they will have pictures they cut out of brides’ magazines. Or again we’ll look through the books. I can take two or three designs and combine them into one. I can take whatever designs they want and make it a whole unique cake. It doesn’t have to be the duplicate of whatever cake they see, I can do that, but usually they like to mix and match.

TVW: Do they seem to want their own designs?
Casias: Yeah, they want their own design. I don’t know that I ever done a duplicate of something I’ve seen in a book or on a page somewhere. Usually when we get to talking, they’ll say, "I’ll like it better with a different shape." The cake may be all decorated and it’s all square and they’ll say they would rather have it round, so that changes it dramatically. Or they’ll see a cake and say, “Oh I want it stacked. I want it three-tiered like that.” You realize that each tier is only 4 inches high. So if you have three tiers, that’s only going to be ruler-size high off the table. They say they thought that it would be higher. No, each tier is only 4 inches high, so that’s 12 inches on a table. If you get a big table, this little 12-inch cake is not going to look too big. If you really want to pizzazz your guests, then let’s separate it. We have separators that start from 3 to 5, to 7 to 9 inches high. We can put that between each one. When they realize that the cake may be 40-inches high or 36-inches high, they’ll get excited. On top of that we can put on a topper. That can be real flowers; it can be a plastic hearts, or swans. It can be anything they want. That adds another 4 to 7 inches. They get really excited and think this is really going to be really high in the sky. These people don’t know how tall a tier is. If it’s done right it should only be 4-inches high. That’s two cakes iced together as one cake. It’s like a double layer. The pictures can be deceiving because the guy’s probably on his knees taking that picture. When you see it on a table, myself, I’ve never been married, but if I were, I would want to pizzazz people. Actually, I would want to make it a national holiday because it would be such a terrific event.

TVW: What are some of the questions you ask your clients?
Casias: The first thing I ask them is: How many people do you want to serve? Most people say 150 to 200 people. That’s usually the ballpark where everybody wants to go. If they say 500 or more, I say, ”When is this wedding going to be?” Hopefully they aren’t going to say next week, because if they say that I am going to have heart failure. I did have a girl once who told me she had two weeks to the wedding. She had already picked out a lady to do her cake, and they lady took ill and could not do the cake. So, we met that afternoon and I did that cake. I mean I worked from the time I took that order until I delivered it. That thing was huge. I think it was for like 500 people or something. It had bridges and a fountain and handmade roses. I mean it was a job. Her mother gave me like an $80 or $100 tip and $50 for showing up to take the order. I don’t charge to take the order. When I got there she said, “Here’s $50 just for showing up.” I don’t charge for that and she said take it anyway. They were just glad someone showed up. They were panicky.

TVW: What’s the average-size wedding cake? Average price?
Casias: Like I said, the average seems to [serve] about 150 to 200 people. I charge $3 a slice. That’s where I am at this present moment in my life. So if the cake is for 150 [people], then it’s $450. I have people sometimes say, “Oh gosh, why so much?” If they saw what cake decorators do behind closed doors they would see why we charge what we do. I think that my price is low, really, compared to some of the other decorators. You have to remember you want that cake level, you want that cake to bake even. We have strips that we put around the pan to make sure it bakes level. If it doesn’t bake level, then you have to kind of try to even it out, slice off little bits of the cake. You have to make sure it’s delivered properly – potholes, chuckholes. I mean you have so many stresses on you to get this thing there and in mint condition. If they saw what you went through, they would understand your prices. I think in comparison to other decorators, I would be on the low side, not the high side. Because I am a consumer, I try to do a good job and do it where people can afford it. The other reason I think my prices are lower is I do only butter cream. The girls that want to do the fondant covering, even though I can do it, I either pass them on to the girls I know that do that or tell them I can do the same design that looks real smooth and nice. That’s probably one of my best characteristics. I can smooth ice a cake so good you don’t see any stroke marks or anything. I can’t tell you my secret; it is an ancient Chinese secret. I can make it look like a fondant cake, and yet it’s butter cream. And that’s where my talent lies, because I like a cake that when I eat it, it melts in my mouth. Fondant is like having chewing gum over the cake. It looks gorgeous, but I don’t want to chew my cakes. I want it to melt on my tongue and the roof of my mouth and down the hatch. I don’t want to have to chew. And that’s where I think my cakes are different than a lot. Even though I think the other is pretty and nice and glory hallelujah. But that’s just not me. I think decorators anymore, we are becoming like doctors. We are finding our niche. I belong to an international cake club called ICES. We’ll be meeting next month — the end of April. We have a big lunch and we have demos, and we have decorators come in from all over. Some are from the United States; some are from out of the United States. Most of them are in the United States. We get some of what I call the big big-whig cake decorators that have been on the food channels. We get some really neat people to come to our demos. They’ll come in and demonstrate something. That’s where I get a lot of new and up-to-date training. I was in one of the issues. We put out a quarterly bulletin. I was in one of the bulletins just last year for my little people. I do little people on cakes out of fondant and gumballs. Gumballs are in the center of the little people’s heads. Anyway, I was one of the demonstrators and I got a lot of press on that. Everybody came up and really made over it. But like I said my unique thing is the butter cream and the melt in your mouth and not all this other. Like I said, I can do it, but I try to pass it on to somebody else or talk the girl into butter cream, because that’s where my talent lies. I want to do what I can do the best versus trying to do something trying to make them happy. That’s not really where my heart lies. When we have these lunches, we talk and people say, “Well I like to do this,” or “I like to do that,” and we all seem to get into our little niches.
I have a girl in the club that makes her icing only out of butter. She will not use shortening or anything like that. I say glory and hallelujah to her, because if she can do that then fine, but in order to make some of the icing flowers or most of the icing flowers you have to use the shortening, because butter wouldn’t hold up. I don’t know how she does it, but I use shortening in my flowers. We all have our little niches. And this is my little niche.

TVW: How long doe sit take to make one?
Casias: That depends on how big it is. If it’s a 14-inch, a 10-inch and a 6-inch, which is kind of like a standard cake, which would serve about a 100 to 150 people, that would take about a week. Unless I worked on it for 24 hours. But I’m doing other things. If somebody called me on Thursday night and wanted that by Saturday, I could kill myself, but I could have it done in two or three days usually. It’s very exhausting. You’re cracking all those eggs, mixing all that batter, and then pouring it into the pans. That bakes for an hour and 15 minutes. Then you have to cool that, then prepare the cake, you have to freeze it. There is so much that goes into it. It’s just not throwing the cake in a pan, throw it onto the table and throw some icing on it. In order to get the cakes on the side to be smooth and nice and straight, there is a lot that goes into it that people don’t understand. I didn’t even know that. The first time I did a wedding cake, the instructor we had told us to take an old bath towel and wet it and wrap it around the pan. That’s what we did to get the cake to bake even. We’ve come a long way baby as they say. Those were techniques that I had never heard of. My mother was a home economics teacher, so she taught me how to measure things. Mom had a Hamilton Beach mixer. She would make cakes form scratch, sometimes from mixes. I would push the chair from the kitchen table over to the counter and stand up on it and watch. I wanted to see this, because I was fascinated as to where these eggs would go. She would crack the eggs and put it into the mix. I would be like, “Now where is it going?” and she would say, ”Oh it’s just mixing in there.” I got a spanking every single time because she was so fastidious. She didn’t want hair or lint. And I would come in there with my hair all which-way because I was just a little kid. So when I graduated from my first professional cake-decorating course, I went to my mom. She was older then. I said to my mom, “Mom I think I deserve that Hamilton Beach. I got smacked every time you used it.” She said, “You know what, you’re right. You take it with you.” It wasn’t too much longer after that that my mom had a heart attack and she died. So I’m real grateful I got that mixer, because it’s like a family heirloom. But it said to me, that she was saying she realized how much that meant to me. It was important to be appreciated for wanting to do this since I was little toddler. I’d been watching her do it and then I went on to learning how to use a pressure cooker, bake. So I have been baking since I was little kid. But cakes came along; the actual cake decorating part didn’t come until I was 25 years old. I’m now 60, so you can imagine. When I took my first class, all the girls that took classes with me, swore that I had taken classes elsewhere. So I really think it’s a gift from God. I said I never did this before, and they said, ”You can’t be that good and just starting.” Honest to God I hadn’t. It just came to me as a gift. That’s why I don’t do risqué cakes and stuff like that. I refuse to do that, because this is such a beautiful gift from God and I want to use it for his Glory and not for stupid things. I won’t say I don’t get calls for them, because I do. I want to stress that I do more novelty cakes than I do weddings. There is a demand for that, but I tend to do more novelty cakes. I had a lady last week; she called me at 10 after 6 and said, “Hey could I have a cake. I know this is short notice, but can I have a 9-by-13 by 10:30 a.m. tomorrow morning?” I said yes, but that is such short notice. I have a life outside of my cakes. But I did it. It turned out really great. Sometimes people don’t give you a lot of notice. So I do more of that than I do weddings. Even though the weddings are very important to me and they do take more time. I do a lot of cartoon cakes, funny cakes, and things like that for little kids. That’s another point — my talent goes in that direction. I like to do the flowers and all that. I love to do the wedding cakes. I like to try to do the designs and stuff like that the girls want. There is a lot of work in that, a lot of detail in that. Especially if pick out really neat designs. I enjoy doing what I do. I absolutely love it. Like I said, it’s a gift, so it’s not hard.

TVW: What are some of the things you deal with when making a wedding cake?
Casias: They are time-consuming. They’re very stressful at times because you’ve got weather you’ve got to be concerned about. I have a van that I deliver them in, and I have to make sure that it’s cleaned out really nice. If you crack the window or something to ask directions to a place, a little bit of dust or something can get in. Those wedding cakes are not covered. Now your little cakes are in boxes, but you deliver the wedding cake, and those are just put in. What I do is put down all the seats and put a sheet down in the back of the van. Then I put a board down, and a sheet over that. Your car has to be pretty immaculate because any little speck with show up on that white icing. I don’t think I’ve ever done an off-colored wedding cake. I’ve airbrushed a couple of sides on a couple, but most of them are white icing. You don’t want anything on there that’s going to mar the finish of your cake. Sometimes I go out there and let the car run for half an hour to 45 minutes to make sure it’s good and cold, because in the summertime you have to worry about that icing melting. There are so many variables. I had one I went clear to Canton on; by the time I got there my lips were purple. It took me about three hours to get there. I’d been in that cold van for three hours because it was hot outside. I don’t want the icing to melt, and it will. Cakes will buckle. Bubbles will form on that icing. I feel kind of like an ob/gyn, because it’s your baby. You don’t want that baby to choke, you don’t want it to cry, you don’t want it to break, and you don’t want it to fall. You have all these things to contend with. You don’t want somebody to hit you in the back of your car. You watch when you go over railroad tracks. You try to dodge potholes. I’ve had people tailgate me that scared me half to death. I’ve got signs that say “wedding cake in delivery.” There is a lot of stress. Some of us girls that do this, we laugh and say we don’t know if we can do this anymore and just let the phone ring. Then someone says, “I’m interested in a wedding cake,” and we just come to life again. I don’t know why that is. You have to love doing what you do. I’ve had people as soon as they walk into the reception site say to me, “Have you ever had one fall?” Why do you start there? Don’t you want to know about my successes? I always plan my set-up two to three hours ahead of time. This way if something gets dinged or banged or whatever, I’ve got time to repair it or go somewhere else and put in a dummy, or do something to make it look right. I had times where the icing has buckled because of the heat and I’ve been able to repair and things have been fine. I want that time so if anything goes wrong, I’ve got that time to fix it before the bride comes in with her new husband. It’s just a safety thing for me. I don’t want to wait until the last minute to deliver something. That makes me nervous. There is a lot of stress to it. Once you get it done, and I step back and take a picture of it, I’m in heaven.

TVW: Have you ever done a really extravagant cake? What goes into that?
Casias: A lot of girls, who are trying to stay within a certain budget, they’ll want something big and mammoth, really far out — as far as “WOW.” They want to dazzle their guests. I don’t blame them. I would, too. But they don’t want to spend the money that it takes to get it that way. They’ll say, “Oh, I want something like this. Look at that fountain and those bridges and how much would all that be?” I’ll ask do they want it all cake or do they want it Styrofoam? They say: Styrofoam? Well, yeah. You can have that look. Maybe they only want to serve 200 people, but they want it to look like it would serve 1,000, because they grew up all their lives thinking, “When I grow up I want a big cake.” I appreciate that dream, because when I was a little girl, I thought the same thing. It just hasn’t happened. I say you can have that look. I’ll charge them $25 for a Styrofoam dummy and I’ll decorate it like your real cake, and we’ll stack it and put bridges across and fountains and whatever you want. Maybe the three cakes in the center that over your fountain, those will the real thing. All the other cakes surrounding their cake are the dummies. But they’ll have the 1,000-serving look, but you’re only going to be paying … well, they’re going to have a movie star looking cake for $600. I’ve had brides say to me, “Hey I don’t want to spend a lot of money on the cake.” I don’t understand that, but I say let’s see what we can do with that. They say they want enough to serve 200 people, but they don’t want to spend $3 a slice. So I just say why don’t they just get the topper cake, then the other two underneath that can be dummies. Then I’ll sell them sheet cakes that are half the price. They can get a sheet cake with 50 servings for $75 dollars. They can keep that in the kitchen. They’ll roll the cake out of the room. They slice up the sheet cake and serve it to the guests, and nobody’s the wiser. Of course, I would be the wiser because I know the standard wedding cake is two cakes iced as one and here you’re getting this little sheet cake that’s going to be a little square. So if you do cakes you know that. But if the bride doesn’t care, and that’s what she wants, then I can save her a lot of money doing it that way. That’s very popular. I just saw some shows on that food channel. There are really stressing that now. If brides really want to save money, then do a sheet cake and do a dummy for the presentation cake.

TVW: Why are wedding cakes a big deal?
Casias: Because of tradition. It’s just like the honeymoon, and going to the church and getting the dress. It’s just a tradition and I think it’s nice tradition. There is supposed to be some fable about it. I’ve read some little quips in some of our cake magazines. It goes back to many, many millions of years ago when they would eat some kind of a cake. It wasn’t like what we have today. It was a different kind of cake. It was just part of the celebration, symbols of fertility. It’s been done over the years, and people just continually do it. Some people just go to the Justice of the Peace and that’s it. I would rather have the big party, because it’s a public event and why not have some cake to go with it? I think that’s just glorious.

TVW: Have you had any memorable wedding cake experiences?
Casias: Two years ago a little girl by the name of Heather – I don’t remember her last name – called me. She was in Lancaster, at a McDonald’s of all places. I brought my books. She wanted a heart-shaped cake with little heart-shaped designs on the edges. She saw one in one of my little cake books she liked and that’s what we agreed upon. When I told her it was $3 a slice, her little heart just sank. She goes, “I wasn’t expecting $3 a slice. That’s just more than my budget. I only have like $150. I was not thinking it would be that much.” So she asked how she could get around that. I told her about the dummies. She ended up getting the three-tier. That was $50 for the base cake and I think I charged her $10 for the top cake, so that was like 60. Then she ordered two 9-by-13 cakes, which would each serve about 20 servings. I knew going in she would not have enough cake for her 150 guests. I told her that. She said, “Some people won’t eat it and I’m going to have to do the best I can, because I just don’t have that kind of money. So just do what you can and thanks.” I liked her. She touched my heart. Her story touched my heart. Everything just seemed to come together. On the way home, it just didn’t sit well with me that she was just getting two little sheet cakes and then the dummies, and then the cake on the top for their first year anniversary. I called one of my girlfriends who is also in the cake business and said that it just wasn’t sitting right with me. I had a fear, since I was going to be at the reception, that I didn’t want people to say, “What was wrong with that cake decorator that she didn’t plan. We are running out of cake.” So she asked how much the difference was in the money, I don’t recall, but a big difference to say the least. She said, “For your reputation and the fact that this girl wants you to come and be part of her reception, why don’t you just go ahead and do it the way she wanted it? Forget the two side sheet cakes and do it the way she really wants it and couldn’t afford it.” I said, you know what, I think that’s what I’m going to do. I think I’m going to surprise her. So I did the cake – three-tired heart cake – all in cake just the way she had originally wanted it and charged her the same as we had agreed to the contract. I did the wedding cake and she started crying. She was going to have to cut out of her topper cake for their cake they put in each other’s mouth. I told her no, just cut the middle one. And she was like, “What?” because she knew it was Styrofoam — or she thought it was. When I said, no, it was real; she started crying because she didn’t know I had done that. She asked where the two side sheet cakes were and I said I didn’t make them. I said, “This is all real, sweetheart. Merry wedding. It’s on the house.” Well, she got so excited and threw her arms around me and kissed me and just carried on. She had more than enough cake and everybody just complimented me and I was a happy camper. This past year one of the guests from her wedding called me and said, “ I was in Heather’s wedding and I would like you to do our wedding cake.” I said, “Oh, wow! You were there?” and she said yes and that her cake was just glorious. She said she had to get my number. She had a hard time getting my number from her family and I asked why was that. She said [Heather] was killed in a car accident in the spring. I said I didn’t know that and I thought to myself, am I glad I did that? I am so glad I did that. That was her last wish to have a beautiful wedding cake and then she was killed six to eight months later in that car accident. I can’t bring her back, but at least I know she went out of this world getting her dream come true. That’s one of my favorite wedding cake memories. I gave her what she wanted even though she couldn’t really afford it. I have no regrets. I know I made her day special. You just never know sometimes when you do favors for people. I would never get that chance again to make her happy. I didn’t know that going in, but I just kept telling my friend it just wasn’t sitting right to do it that way. I just don’t feel comfortable doing it the way she wanted because she couldn’t afford it. I would rather do it the way she wanted and not get paid, than the other way around. It worked out, and it was one of the last things I could ever have done for her and I am so happy that I did it. I know I made her day special and happy. I didn’t know at that point she was going to end up in a car accident that would take her life. It all went well and it was a beautiful cake.



Phone interview on March 27, 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “Listen” and Trisha Perkinson of Pat-A-Cakes and Cookies in Noblesville, Ind.

Twinkle VanWinkle: Can you give me your name, business and where you are located?
Trisha Perkinson: Sure. It’s Trisha Perkinson and I’m with Pat-A-Cakes and Cookies in Noblesville, Ind.

TVW: Where do you begin the process of creating a wedding cake?
Perkinson: It typically starts with a consultation. We keep it pretty laid back. We offer cake samples to every bride. We establish some general information, thus begin the cake creating process.

TVW: How do you come up with the design?
Perkinson: It's a combination. Typically the brides come armed with pictures and then we have pictures as well. We work those together with the color scheme that the bride has chosen. Work together to come up with a design that's going to suit there needs.

TVW: What are some of the things that go into the planning and pricing of the cake?
Perkinson: Obviously the number of servings that are needed, what kind of presentation they are looking for, where the cake is going to be in the reception hall. Is it going to be the main focus, or if it's going to be off to the side? Price range, colors, flavors. Whether the wedding is inside or outside, that is very important as well.

TVW: How long does it take to make a wedding cake, on average?
Perkinson: Start to finish — preparing the cake batter, baking the cake, setting it up, [putting] their stand up, actually decorating the cake, before delivery —anywhere from three to five hours. Add delivery, it's another one to two hours usually.

TVW: What are some of the things that go into the cake, the ingredients?
Perkinson: Standard ingredients: flour, sugar, salt, baking powder, eggs, butter, and etcetera. The same recipes we use for our everyday cakes as well.
We make the batter in large quantities and evenly distribute it into the pans for that particular cake, so that’s hard to say. But we do measure it very carefully.

TVW: Have you ever had any unusual cakes?
Perkinson: We had one that color scheme truly made it unusual — oranges, pinks and reds. It was just a color combination we had never seen before on a wedding cake, and we were kind of concerned it wasn't going to be very attractive. But it came together and was actually very beautiful and we've since put it in our album, and turned out great.

TVW: Have you had any really expensive or elaborate cakes?
Perkinson: We recently made one that was a four-tiered cake. It was for a fairly large wedding. In addition to the cake they ordered quite a few cookies to hand out as favors as well. So their total bill was well over a $1,000. That's pretty unusual.

TVW: What is something key about your cakes that you think makes them stand out?
Perkinson: Just our goal is that we always want to make sure that it tastes as good as it looks. We think that’s important. We try to keep the whole process simple from start to finish. As far as the consultation, no appointment is required, which is unusual. We'll stop and talk to them when they come in. We figure they have enough stress going on in their lives, they don't need to stress about he cake as well.

TVW: How do you price a cake and what is an average cost?
Perkinson: Well, we price it out per serving, so an average three- to four-tiered cake that would serve that number of people, probably anywhere from $375 maybe up to $700. Just depends on what combination, whether they use tier cake and sheet cake, or they want all their servings to come from their tier cake.

TVW: How long have you been baking and where were you trained?
Perkinson: Well, my partner and I combined; we've been baking for over 50 years, within different places obviously. Most of our training, honestly, has been on the job. We've both worked in other establishments, cake decorating, baking, managing, etc. So it's just accumulated training and we've just mastered our own style.

TVW: How does the cake get delivered?
Perkinson: Very, very carefully. It's by far the most stressful part of the whole process. Typically we can deliver them separately, so we can keep the tiers separate and put it together at the destination. There is a few that sometimes have to be delivered all put together and that's a little tedious. But so far no disasters.

TVW: What do you think is the best part?
Perkinson: We always enjoy making them for people we already know, family or friends or referrals from family or friends. Just makes it a little more special. We enjoy every one of them, but those are a little more special.

TVW: Do you think wedding cakes are important? Why do you think people order them?
Perkinson: I just think its tradition. I just think every little girl dreams of designing her wedding gown and her wedding dress. Oftentimes it's the gathering point in the reception hall, people kind of cluster around the cake. So it's just a typical part of a wedding.

TVW: What’s the funniest story about a wedding cake you’ve baked?
Perkinson: We had a maid of honor that picked up a groom's cake on behalf of the bride to help the bride save a little time. It was a basketball cake. She took it home just long enough to change clothes. Meanwhile her dog ate it. So she called us in a panic. She had two hours before the actual wedding. So we were able to whip together another basketball cake in a hurry and everything turned out OK. That was probably the most humorous thing as far as wedding cakes go. We are usually pretty serious.

TVW: Tell me some of your favorite parts of the whole experience, if you will.
Perkinson: Truthfully our favorite part is when it's all done and the bride comes back or the bride's family comes back and brings us the stand and says everything went great. That's our favorite part.

TVW: What do you think is important as far as creating a good relationship with your client?
Perkinson: We just keep it all very laid-back. They can come in whenever they want. They don't have to have an appointment. They can try the cake here, they can take the samples home and try it. We just keep it very low-key, because that is how we are. If we get all uptight, the customers are going to know that, and it's probably not going to work real well.
If we're stressed out it's going to worry them. So we are very calm. We deliver the cakes with enough time, god forbid anything would happen, if anything did happen we would have time to fix the cakes and make it OK again.


Phone interview on April 1, 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “Listen!” and Jennifer Matsubara, Shelby Lynne’s Cake Shoppe, Springdale, Ark.

Twinkle VanWinkle: Can you start with giving me your name, business and location?
Jennifer Matsubara: Sure! My name is Jennifer Matsubara, and I own Shelby Lynne’s Cake Shoppe in Springdale, Ark.

TVW: Where do start the process of beginning a wedding cake?
Matsubara: I think in the process, first I meet with the bride. We do our consultation, where she gets to taste the wedding cake. We get to talk about designs, and decide what would really fit in her reception. A lot of times I encourage brides to bring pictures in, because that does help for me to get a general idea of their overall style. If they don’t have any pictures, I’ve got tons of cakes on display, and lots of books with pictures in them also. Sometimes we just have to start with nothing and we just kind of move up from there and I’ll get a general feel for her reception — whether it’s going to be modern chic or classic elegance. Just throw out some key words and see what words make her eyes light up. Then we’re just going to move on from there.

TVW: How long does it take to make a wedding cake?
Matsubara: Depending on design, generally 90 percent of my weddings cakes are about a two- or three-hour endeavor. And that is just the decorating. Of course, there’s baking that goes into it. There is chilling the cakes, filling them also, once they’re chilled, cutting the boards that will be the separators in between the cakes, and any prep work if there is like a little bit of sugar paste flowers on the cake or sugar paste bows. All those have to be made ahead of time.

TVW: What are some of the ingredients?
Matsubara: Of course your basic flour, eggs, butter, and milk. Then of course the butter cream icing, the fondant icing. And we have a huge variety of fillings that we offer. We do some fresh fruit fillings. We do cream fillings. For example we have a cream cheese that’s very traditional. We also do a French pastry cream in vanilla and chocolate. We have a strawberry cream cheese, a raspberry cream. We have a key lime that’s a more of a creamy type filling. Of course each cake has the cake base, so there’s egg, sugar, milk and flour in it. We are pretty flexible here at the shop, so we allow brides to do something different in every tier, which the majority of brides do. So the top tier will be white cake with for example strawberry filling, a rich chocolate cake with raspberries and cream, or carrot cake with cream cheese. We really don’t put any limitations on our brides.

TVW: How do you deliver the cake?
Matsubara: Actually, I do not deliver my cakes. I have a delivery driver who works here at the cake shop and he delivers all my wedding cakes pretty much put together. I’ll completely assemble them here and then just drive very, very carefully. That way whenever he gets to the reception site, he takes it out of the van, and puts it on the table and he’s done.

TVW: Why is the cake such a big deal?
Matsubara: A wedding cake is truly the centerpiece of the reception. Everybody asks about the wedding cake. Usually it’s first: ”What did the bride look like?” — Oh she was gorgeous. “What did the food taste like? What was the cake like?” So cake and weddings truly go hand in hand. It’s traditional to have a wedding cake. Even some of the most outrageous, non-traditional weddings out there, they still have a cake.
I’ll make any kind of cake I’m hired to do. That’s my job. I’m a servant of the bride. Personally, my personal style, I like things that are young and edgy. I like fun and funky things. I’ve made white wedding cake after white wedding cake. I really push brides to add a little bit color to their cake because that really sets their cake apart from the cake their guests saw at the last wedding they were at. Color really makes a cake memorable. I love doing fun stuff that pushes me that I haven’t done before.

TVW: What are some questions you ask your clients?
Matsubara: I always ask what is the overall feel of the reception. Do you plan on using fresh flowers on your cake? That’s a good question. I of course ask them the number of guests. That’s a big factor in what size is the cake. Then I have brides come in and say, “I want a big cake but I only want it for 50 people, or 50 servings.” I always ask what’s the budget for the cake. There are a lot of grand ideas out there, unfortunately not a lot of grand budgets.

TVW: What is an average-size cake? And pricing?
Matsubara: An average-size cake is about 150 servings. That’s the most popular wedding cake size and about $500. That is the average cost of the butter cream icing, not too overly done, but still very simple and very chic.

TVW: Ever have a truly outrageous cake?
Matsubara: Well I did one that was $7,000 and it was over-the-top. It was towering probably, I think, with it sitting on the table; it was about 8-feet tall. That one we put together on site, so we do have an exception to that rule. This one was done on site. It was separated. It had columns. It had lots of fresh flowers, lots of fresh hydrangeas. It made a statement for sure. When you walked into the reception and this giant cake overwhelming everything else in the reception, it just screams cake lover.

TVW: Have you ever made any really unusual cakes?
Matsubara: Some people would answer this with an all black wedding cake, but I think that black wedding cakes are really cool. When done correctly they can make a very dramatic statement. Probably the most unusual cake would be a groom’s cake that was a request for a dead opossum on his back, wearing red Speedos, laying on a sandy beach, with a beer can in it’s hand, and it’s tongue hanging out. Red velvet of course.


TVW: What’s your favorite part about doing this?
Matsubara: My favorite part is getting to do what I love, and making a good living it. Gratefully, that this is an art form, so I’m not a starving artist by any means. I can have my cake and eat it, too when it comes to my career choice. I really love being able to create something that is part of me, it’s almost like a little gift I make for the bride on her wedding day, and therefore I am part of that day. I know that sounds very cliché, but I am. That’s what I love is to make people happy, and know that everybody that walks into my cake shop, has me deliver a wedding cake to the reception, through my work without me being there, they can tell I truly love what I do.



Phone interview on March 29, 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “Listen!” and Lauren Carter, senior event consultant, lolaEvent Productions, Chicago.

Twinkle VanWinkle: Can you give your name, business and location?
Lauren Carter: Definitely. I’m Lauren Carter and I'm with Lola Event Productions. We're based in Chicago. We have been around since 2006 and do primarily weddings.


TVW: What are some of the things you consider when beginning the wedding cake process with our clients?
Carter: A lot of which is putting the customer in touch with the bakery that I think they are going to like the best. A lot of which some clients want itself to be really delicious and others want it to be primarily a work of art and then there are those that want a happy medium and there are bakeries that can accommodate each of those things. What I like to do is help them pick flavors that are going to be seasonal and appropriate for their time of year and the type of wedding that they are having. So if you are getting married in spring, carrot cake or red velvet cake might not be the best fit. You might want to think of something that is a little bit lighter, a little bit fresher and more summery. And then I also like to help clients pull in the cake design to either elements of the wedding. That’s really great place to really tie everything together and have it be cohesive with the rest of the design and decor of the event.

TVW: How do you come up with the designs?
Carter: One of my favorites things to do is to take an invitation design and then repeat an element of the design onto the cake itself. I also love to do, I am actually working with a client right now, and we are taking elements of her dress and repeating that onto the cake. I love cakes that make sense. When you have a cake that doesn’t seem to fit with the rest of the event it just doesn’t seem to connect.

TVW: Why do you think the cake is so important?
Carter: I think that a lot of times the wedding cake becomes the centerpiece of the event. Décor-wise you have really beautiful centerpieces and beautiful place card table; your paper materials are going to be fantastic with your menu and your program and then your invitations. Then the cake that really stands alone. It’s really one of those things that can wind up being a focal piece for the event. When you are speaking in traditional terms, a lot of people come to the wedding expecting the cake to be something really fantastic — when you’re speaking about tradition. A new thing clients are doing lately is doing things other than wedding cake, like cupcakes. I have one client right now who is doing pie, actually. I have had a few people that they want pie or they want cupcakes, they want something other than cake, just to sort of break tradition. Yes, they are trying to make some sort of a statement. One of my clients that wants pie is getting married on the Fourth of July, so she wants it to be really cohesive. But, some of my clients just don’t like cake, and one of my clients is gluten-intolerant. She wants something that she can actually partake in as well.

TVW: What are some things you look for when recommending a cake decorator to your clients?
Carter: Some of the things that I look for: I look for the taste of their butter cream. Some butter creams are a little bit sweeter. Some are not so sweet. I think that there’s a really fine line. To have a really fantastic butter cream is an important element of the cake. I also look for people who don’t freeze their layers prior to. I look for people who bake their cake, assemble it and decorate all the day of the wedding whenever possible because their cake is going to taste much more fresh. When you freeze the cake and then put it together and decorate it, then what you wind up getting is a cake that is a little bit drier. I don’t know if you have ever tried to freeze cake …
I have had some really interesting experiences with it, and I am sure that there are exceptions to the rule. Not that there are rules. Bakers do know best, but what I like to do is when the client is tasting the cake, that what they are tasting is what they are going to get. I’ve had clients go into \ tastings and the cake has been frozen and then thawed out and what they taste is really dry, but knowing the baker myself, knowing what they do the day of, their cakes are anything but dry. So I like to make sure what the client is tasting is what they are going to be getting, the actual finished product. So that is something to keep in mind. Something else that has been coming up lately is clients aren’t really a fan of the way fondant tastes. Some people love it; some people really tend to go for the aesthetic purposes rather than the taste of it. So with that said, they end up not wanting to have fondant at all, just have butter cream frosting. I like to find bakers that will do what I requested by the client. Some bakers won’t produce a cake unless it has fondant. I happen to not mind it at all, especially chocolate fondant I love.

TVW: How much cake is average? And what is an average price range?
Carter: I think, especially if you are looking for cost-saving measures, if you have a dessert buffet where you are plating the cake on a buffet table, rather than plating it and serving it to each individual guest. Not everybody eats cake. You don’t need to accommodate every single person, because a lot of times there is a lot of cake that is wasted at a wedding. With that said, if it’s a wedding of 200 people, I usually recommend that they plate for somewhere between 125 and 150 people. Depending on the intensity of the design, if we’re using fondant or not, that can usually range between anywhere from 600, up to 1,000 and up, depending on the type of décor and the type of cake that’s chosen.

TVW: Have you ever had an unusual cake at a wedding?
Carter: I guess I would have to say that my wedding cake was fairly unusual. We did chocolate fondant on the outside and a lot of people were pretty taken by that. Another one that definitely takes the cake in terms of unusual is rather than doing a cake topper of some sort, they had their cake topper placed underneath the cake and acted as a support and the cake stand. It was the initial of the bride and groom last name. So they had a gigantic “K” with their cake supported on top o the K. I thought that was just a really creative way to present their cake and sort of flip things around a little bit.

TVW: Why is the cake such a big deal?
Carter: I think that the cake is so important, just winds up being the culmination of everything. They say that the end of the wedding is when the bride and the groom have cut the cake. So when you walk into the reception, right there in front of you, you have the beautiful cake. Oftentimes the linens for that table are done extra detail-oriented elements so it acts as a centerpiece. Then it’s something that really calls the tone of the event, with the cutting of the cake and there’s the whole ceremony and traditional aspect. It really holds many different roles. I think that having it be something that is impactful, design-wise, really takes it to the next level. Having a cake that is really impactful design-wise really pulls it all together. The cake acts as a piece of décor and design. But it also is this traditional and ceremonial element that really speaks to tradition and history, even when weddings haven’t been the big production that they are today. Sixty, 75 years ago, weddings were much smaller celebrations. A lot of times you would find, you would just have cake — cake and champagne — rather this three- or four-course meal and dancing. It was just cake and champagne. So the cake I think is really very important element, especially when speaking to the tradition ceremonial element of weddings.






 

Jeremy Stacy, “List-en!” associate producer
Michael Bosco interview
March 24, 2009

Jeremy Stacy: Please give me your name your business name for the record.

Michael Bosco: My name is Michael Bosco. I'm with Soils Alive and we're located in Dallas. I started Soils Alive 12 years ago and we provide organic plant health care. Basically, we do the fertilization and any insect and weed control that's needed to keep the landscape maintained.

JS: Why did you decide to start providing organic lawn care?

MB: At the time when we were [using] chemicals, I knew that we were doing something that wasn't necessary on a lot of yards. It was a lot of wasted time, money and energy spent spraying for things that weren't there. It wasn't a pro-healthcare approach. It was taking a step backward as opposed to taking a step forward when it came to making the plants healthier.

I knew that there had to be a better way. Using organic fertilizers, you’re improving the health of the soil, whereas when you use chemical fertilizers, which are salt-based fertilizers … you're degrading the soil. You're killing some earthworms. You're killing biological activity in the soil that supports those plants.

I knew that there had to be a better way and that's where I found the organic methods to be a much better way to keep plants healthier.

JS: How did you learn about these organic methods?

MB: Well, I started educating myself through organic agriculture practices. There's a lot of information about gardening and home organic lawn care [today], but 12 years ago there just wasn't as much information.

Plus, in organic agriculture, they had to get the results. You've got your livelihood on the line and if you can make a crop succeed in agriculture, then those are techniques that will work in the home lawn.

I started going to organic agriculture conferences and educated myself with consultants in the field and just brought that knowledge into horticulture.

JS: What is the process for transitioning a chemically treated lawn organic care?

MB: When we're taking a lawn that's been chemically treated, we can assume they've had the degradation of soil's health — some biology has been killed out. We make a liquid compost, which we basically extract compost, we pressure wash it through a fancy machine, and it allows us to take the most valuable portion of the compost and spray it on the yard very economically.

You can do the same thing by applying [solid] compost, which is bulky, expensive to spread and very labor intensive. We found this process allows us to spray it out. That inoculates the soil with the beneficials that are needed to digest organic fertilizers.

And of course, [we] stop using the synthetic fertilizers, stop using the harsh chemicals, the insecticides, the pesticides and start using things that are beneficial to the soil and to the worms in the soil.

That's when we actually start getting the results. There's a lot of information out there about compost teas, liquid compost and that's really the cutting edge of organics.

JS: So adding compost to your yard is one of the first steps in creating an organic lawn?
 
MB: It is. Step one is [to] stop using the synthetic fertilizers, insecticides, pesticides and fungicides. Step two is bringing the soil back to life. Let's bring that soil back to life. Let's make that dirt alive and make it soil, which is a healthy soil to be growing plants in.  Feeding the soil so the soil can feed the plants is what we like to say.

JS: Does the liquid compost have an odor?

MB: Liquid compost has no odor other than a kind of nice earthy smell you would expect from good quality compost. From time to time, we will add some additional nutrients to it like fish or seaweeds, which come with their own particular smells.

When we add fish, sometimes we'll add molasses, which is a nice sweet smell. It reduces the odor of any fish product we use. Fish is a great plant fertilizer so we do like to incorporate it at times.

JS: What else goes establishing an organic lawn?

MB:   Well, just a continuous feeding with organic fertilizers, using the liquid compost, incorporating the fish, the seaweeds and the micronutrients. We like to remineralize the soil using different rock dusts in our compost and then extracting that material. It's re-establishing the biology, it re-establishing the nutrients, it's getting the roots healthier — adding microbial fungi, different species of bacteria that support the healthy plant [growth].

Then you have to maintain the weeds throughout the year.

What we consider a healthy lawn is a perfect monoculture of one species of grass. That's not really what Mother Nature wants and so we always have to manage that and keep it from reverting back to something more like a pasture.

That's something that a lot of people don't quite understand. They think a healthy lawn is a lawn without weeds. Well, actually, a weedy yard is a healthier system and that's how you would find it out in nature.

We have to manage that and keep the appearance that homeowners want.

JS: When do homeowners start seeing results?

MB: Well, it's a step forward as soon as we start. If you have a good stand of grass to work with, that makes life a little easier. If you've got a lot of weeds, then that makes it a little harder and make take a little bit longer.

But, from the very beginning, we expect our clients to see an improvement. Certainly, the second and third year is when they really get the benefit of being on an organic program because that first year, it's really just kind of getting started. It's very much like baking a cake. You put the ingredients together, but until you let those products kind of come together and let the system work do you actually end up with a cake after the entire process is over with.

The second year is so much better than the first year and the third year and so on. That's when you start seeing the true water reduction — the need for water — because the plants have a healthier soil and better root system. Trees and shrubs take a little while longer to come around, but once they're healthy, they stay healthy longer. The lawn, though, is something you should see an improvement on very quickly — within a few weeks of the first application. 

JS: When is the best time of year to begin organic lawn treatment?

MB: You as a homeowner will see results faster if you start in the springtime. That's because you've got the moisture, you’ve got nice growing conditions, and everything is coming out of dormancy. So you're more likely to see the results of what you're working toward.  But, if you actually start in the fall, you will make more progress in a shorter period of time because you're allowing that material to get in and you're starting to back the cake sooner.

The fall is a great time to condition the soil so when it comes out in the spring, it's that much farther ahead. But, you don't see any results over the wintertime so you've got several months there that things are working in the soil, but not appearance wise.

JS: What are the benefits of organic lawn care?

MB: The benefit of organic lawn care is that you're creating a healthy soil system. What you're getting out of that is less water needed to grow your lawns, trees or shrubs. You will have healthier plants because healthier plants will keep the insects and diseases at bay. A healthier turf will keep weeds down.

So, spending the time to create an organic fertilization program, you will have healthier plants, reduce water needs and of course, the biggest reason why people go organic is that they're reducing their exposure to chemicals. And they're doing their part for the environment. They're reducing the runoff into surface water, streams, lakes as well as groundwater contamination.

When you figure the cost of a chemical fertilizer program, yes, they're less expensive, but when you have to start thinking about chemical spills…the chemicals in our water, those expenses don't actually have to be paid out by the homeowner except in taxes or in some other way. Those are the unseen expenses to a chemical lawn care company that the organic lawn care is not causing a problem.

JS: What are some misconceptions about organic lawn care?

MB: That it takes too long and that it's too expensive. Organic lawn care doesn't really take that much longer. We certainly see better benefits the second and third year, but it's always a leap forward. If somebody has a weedy yard today and they want it to be perfect tomorrow, then the only way to make that happen is with some chemical herbicides. That might be something we can talk to them about and they can make a decision if that's what they want to do. But, ultimately, our goal is to make that turf a lot healthier so that it doesn't have the weeds in it.

The other part is that it's too expensive. That's where you get into — well, you can pay today or pay tomorrow. That's where we get into the exposure to your pets and children to the chemicals and the cost to the environment. Yes, it is a little more expensive to use organic fertilizer, but we're not going to have problems that we have to clean up a year or two down the road. Or possibly even health problems you may unfortunately end up causing.

We do hear a lot about pets being exposed to chemicals a lot and they're much more likely to come down with problems because of their exposure. The cost is for a healthier you and your landscape.

JS: What does a typical organic lawn care program cost?

MB: An average lawn in the Dallas/Fort Worth area is about 4,000 to 5,000 square feet. We can do that in the range of $600 to $700 per year. That's for the lawns trees and shrubs. Actually, many of the chemical lawn care companies, when they do a similar program of lawns trees and shrubs, we're within 10 percent or less of their price.

The reason is they have to send out two trucks to do the same thing we do. Since we're not using any harmful herbicides, we don't have to worry about spraying the trees and shrubs and killing them, whereas they have to have two trucks to service the same property. Of course, then you get into … fossil fuels that are being burned to apply those products, that's twice the labor. When we're able to compete apple for apple on the same service, then we’re actually very competitive.

A lot of times people only have a lawn service. When that is the case, then a lot of time we are 40 to 50 percent higher in cost.

JS: How’s business?

MB: We have about 900 clients in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and the proof is in the pudding. We do get the results. The comments I get from most people are "I didn't know you existed. I didn't know there was an option." 

Once people realize they have an option and the results are as good if not better, then it's a really easy sell.

We very much consider our marketing campaign an awareness campaign.

JS: How can homeowners know that they’re getting true organic lawn care?

MB: It is very easy just to throw some synthetic fertilizers out or use the herbicides. The best thing to do is just to ask a lot of questions. Educate yourself about how they're going to treat for the weeds. Fertilization and insect disease control is very easy to do organically.

The toughest part of any organic program is the weed control. That is something we need to find out how weeds are going to be dealt with. We personally ask the clients how they want them dealt with. Are they going to pull weeds? Do they want us to treat any weeds? Do they want us to spot spray weeds. We tell them the limitations. Different grasses are very different.

For example, St. Augustine grass, we don't really have a need for herbicides because St. Augustine grass grows so thick and it really keeps the weeds at bay.

Whereas Bermuda grass is much more difficult to keep completely organic, so they might need to be a little bit more involved in their lawn if they don't want any chemicals applied to it.

The best things they can do are educate themselves, get a couple different bids, and ask a lot of questions. 

JS: What specific questions should homeowners ask organic lawn care specialists?

MB:  How will you deal with the weeds? What kind of fertilizers will you use? If I have an insect outbreak, how will that be dealt with? Does it need to be dealt with?

A lot of people want to kill as soon as they see something. A true organic company is one that's going to try to educate you about why we don't necessarily want to treat every single aphid we see. If you have aphids, well then let's see if there are any ladybugs near by. Maybe you have parasitizing wasps that are already feeding on the aphids. If the aphids are sprayed, even with an organic spray, we may actually be killing the beneficials.

Find somebody that actually knows what they're talking about, that is educated about insects, diseases and different organic fertilization programs and I think once you find somebody that knows what they're talking about. They're going to be the ones best suited to manage your property.

JS: Tell me about water use in organic lawns.

MB: We talked a little bit about water needs and water savings. I consider the three major components of a healthy lawn and landscape is … the cultural practices [mowing, maintenance and pruning], the other is the water and the third is the fertilization program. Water is so important that it's managed properly. It's really the difference between success and failure in chemical or organic [lawns]. Certainly with organic because if you're overwatering, you're really going to create a lot more problems for yourself.

We work with our clients to help them manage the irrigation system or teach them how to do it themselves. There are some great products that are actually weather stations that will water only when needed based upon your soil type and the current weather conditions you have. You're looking at anywhere from 25 percent to 50 percent reduction in water. When you reduce the amount of water you use, you're usually doing a better job of managing your plants as well.

The water is as critical as the fertilization program in having a successful, beautiful landscape.

JS: Why do organic lawns use less water?

MB: The reason why an organic lawn uses less water is because the soil is very much like a community. We create these structures that we live in and that we work in to protect us from the surroundings. Fungi and bacteria are very much the same way. They create these little pore spaces. Those are places they function in. They're able to move about and that pore space creation is where water can be held within the soil.

So the more biologically active the soil is, the more earthworm activity, the more bacteria, the more fungi which are usually always beneficial anyway. That's going to leave that much more space for water holding capacity. As well as, those pore spaces are places where roots can develop. So not only do you have a higher water holding capacity, you also have a much better root system to extract that water. It's a two-fold system on the water savings. So just by going organic, you will save water. But then, the homeowner actually has to cut back the water.

It is important to not only know you can do better with less water, but to actually cut back the water because city water has a lot of chlorine and other chemicals in it. So the less of that we put on our yard, the better off we are as long as you're not taking your plant to the point of wilting.

Overwatering kills more plants that I see than underwatering. Certainly in July and August we have plants die because of lack of water, but for the most part people do not change their watering schedule from the summer watering to the winter watering. We get fungal problems, we get brown patch, and we get take-all.

If it's being overwatered, it forces the oxygen out of the soil. Oxygen is even more critical that water. The organisms in the roots are no different than us in the sense that we can live a lot longer with out water than we can without air. We need to make sure we have oxygen in the soil and are not just super saturating the soil with excess water.

Trees are extremely harmed by too much water. There are more trees that die from being overwatered than die from being underwatered.

When we push oxygen out of the soil, we are allowing anaerobic conditions. That's when pathogens become the problem. There’s not the good guys to fend off the bad guys.

The root system is very much like a parking lot. If we manage the parking lot through organic means, we will fill the parking lot up with beneficials — guys that are your friends. As soon as we start harming them or flooding them out, or we've used insecticides or herbicides, we start killing off our friends and the parking lot start emptying out. That's when the pathogens start filling up.

We want to make sure we're promoting beneficials as opposed to pathogens.

---

Jeremy Stacy, “List-en!” associate producer
Jane Anderson interview
March 25, 2009

Jeremy Stacy: Please give me your name and location for the record.

Jane Anderson: My name is Jane Anderson and I live in Beverly, Mass., which is in the Boston area.

JS: How big is your lawn?

JA: I think it's just short of an acre.

JS: Why do you use an organic lawn service?

JA: We have a dog, so for the safety of him because he runs around the grass all the time and for our own safety because my husband and I don't want to be exposed to a lot of chemicals. And we also have a sense of environmental responsibility anyway and the house backs up to kind of a wetland area. So that sense of responsibility is a little bit heightened — that we hate the idea of any chemicals running off into that wetland area.

JS: Have you ever used a traditional lawn care service?

JA: When we first moved to the area about a year and a half ago, we signed up for a traditional lawn service — chemical service — and they kind of positioned themselves as being environmentally friendly. But, the fact is they were coming and putting pesticides and the regular kind of weed and feed stuff on the lawn. We actually had kind of a scary experience.

They had been there a few times to do weed and feed kind of services and I was already thinking that it bothered me to be putting chemicals like that on the lawn. And then the first time they came and did a pest spray, I came home that day and there was actually a squirrel convulsing on the lawn. I mean it was having a seizure and it was horrifying. And I said, "That's it. We're canceling the traditional chemicals. We're not putting this stuff on the lawn anymore."

JS: How did you transition your lawn to organic care?

JA:  The owner came and looked at our lawn and he gave a recommendation and I think he has sort of a standard program, but he customizes it. They do a soil test and they look at your lawn and they customize it a little bit to what you need. I think the first year — last year — they did their standard program. But then this year, based on what we liked and didn't like and what we thought we needed and what he thought we needed moving forward, he did more of a customized program for us.

JS: Have you seen an improvement in your lawn?

JA: I think it's going to be a long-term thing. The lawn wasn't in great shape when we moved in and after we had used the traditional lawn chemicals for several months, we really didn't see any impact at all. I felt like we were treating the weeds and treating the pests when the real issue wasn't the weeds and the pests, it was the health of the lawn.

That's what the organic company really addresses. They believe that if you take care of the soil and take care of the lawn that that will work out most of your pest and weed problems. It's sort of backward thinking to focus on the symptoms instead of the underlying causes, which is usually like unhealthy soil and unhealthy lawn.

JS: Do you think you use more water with the organic lawn care?

JA: Not at all. We don't water really at all. We water a little bit in the front. The front gets a lot of sun so we watered that a little bit last year, but it really doesn't take any additional work either way.

JS: How does the cost of organic lawn care compare to the traditional lawn care service you used?

JA: It's comparable. It may even be a little bit less. It's definitely comparable at least if not better. In fact, one of the things that the organic company focuses on is seeding and keeping new grass coming. I did notice that their seeding was significantly less expensive [than the traditional lawn service].

JS: Why is organic lawn care important to you?

JA: I think what it really comes down to is I feel better. I feel better about how we're treating our little environment that we live in. I feel better about what our dog is exposed to. I feel better about what we're exposed to. I don't have to worry if we want to go stretch out in the grass on a sunny day. I don't have to worry about what we're exposing ourselves to. I just feel better about it. I don't worry about the wildlife and how we might be impacting the wildlife that's in our lawn and beyond.

JS: Are there any unpleasant smells associated with the organic lawn treatments?

JA: No. There was one time that they sprayed a kelp product and I live about two miles from the ocean and every once in a while I can smell the ocean if the wind is just right. The day that they came and sprayed I said, "Oh, you can really smell the ocean today." Eventually I figured out, "No you can't, it's the kelp." But, it wasn't an unpleasant smell at all. I thought it was a nice ocean breeze.

Other than that we haven't smelled anything. The only issue we had once — I think it was the kelp that they sprayed — it gave us mushroom growth. We had a little flurry of mushroom growth, which wouldn't have been a big deal except that our dog likes to eat them. That's the only issue we had, so we're just not doing that this year.

The company sort of positions themselves as about not having a perfect, perfect lawn and I think that it's possible that if you really want an absolutely picture perfect lawn that [organic] may not be right for you. I've got a big lawn and so any imperfections kind of get lost. If I had a smaller lawn it might be a little bit different, but I'm even unconvinced of that anyway because the traditional chemicals weren't doing anything anyway. They weren't killing the weeds and they weren't doing anything to treat the lawn either.

JS: How did you find your organic lawn service?

JA: Angie's List.

JS: Why did you choose them?

JA: They looked so different. Their profile was so different and so focused on treating the soil and treating the grass and not focusing so much on the symptoms. They really struck us as something different and as something that really fit with our approach.

JS: How did you make sure they were going to treat your lawn organically?

JA: I asked a lot of questions about — like I said, my prior lawn service sort of positioned themselves as environmentally friendly — so I asked some specific questions about the chemicals the other company used and how they were different because they sort of positioned it as environmentally friendly so what's the difference? He was really knowledgeable about the chemistry and the impact on the soil biology. The guy knew what he was talking about and he was excited about it and passionate about it.

I mostly asked him questions about the chemicals and how does the lawn reacted differently to the different types of chemicals and how does the soil react.

JS: How often do they treat your lawn?

JA:  They come several times in the spring and several times in the fall and they do soil conditioning and fertilization. I guess soil conditioning promotes the growth of beneficial organisms in the soil. Then the fertilization encourages the health and growth of the lawn itself.

They also do some other things. They do the seeding. They can treat for crabgrass — we have a lot of crabgrass — and they can treat that with corn gluten, which I think coats the crabgrass seeds so they don't grow. It's a natural safe treatment for crabgrass.

They can also treat for grubs with nematodes, which is interesting. They actually come and spray living things all over your lawn. We're getting the corn gluten this year. Last year when we signed up we were too late because you have to get it at the right time in the season. But this year we're going to do that and see if it helps because we had a lot of crabgrass last year and the chemicals weren't doing anything. They didn't help at all. So, we'll see what happens this year.

JS: How much does your service cost?

JA: It depends a little bit on what you do, but it's probably about $1000, which is similar to what my old plan was.

The big difference is that this program includes the cost of seeding, which the traditional program did not [include] and I think the seeding on a lawn like mine that's very problematic — the seeding will have the biggest impact. That's the one impact we saw last year was the seeding did help a lot.

JS: Any other thoughts on organic lawn care?

JA: I would say that it's better to treat the underlying cause of the issue than treat the symptoms. And the weeds and pests are the problem. If you expend a lot of resources dealing with those symptoms, you're not necessarily going to fix the underlying cause and you may do a lot of collateral damage in the process — to the environment, to the kids — and I just don't think it's worth it.

I will say that I feel better at night and our little red squirrel is surprisingly still alive and well. Every time they come and spray, I breathe a little breath of fresh air that he's safe and won't be convulsing again.

For more information on green products or how to dispose of hazardous household waste in your area, visit these helpful sites.

EPA — epa.gov — Go here to find locations for hazardous waste drop-off, recycling centers in your area. You can also learn more about what’s in household cleaners.

Earth911.com — earth911.com — Learn more about softening your environmental footprint by using the three R’s: Reduce, reuse, recycle.

Household Products Database — householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/ —This database links over 8,000 consumer brands to health effects cited by Material Safety Data Sheets (MSDS), which are provided by manufacturers.

Habitat for Humanity Restores — habitat.org/env/restores.aspx — Retail outlets where quality used and surplus building materials are sold at a fraction of normal prices.

Sierra Club — sierraclub.org — The Sierra Club is an environmental organization. 
 

Phone interview on March 18, 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Amy Hartstock, public information officer for Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Amy Hartsock: My name is Amy Hartsock. My position is public information officer and I work for the Indiana Department of Environmental Management.

Twinkle VanWinkle: What are some of the more hazardous household products?

Hartsock: Products that contain mercury, gasoline, used motor oil, antifreeze, oil filters, automotive batteries, otherwise know as spent lead acid batteries, and unwanted electronics. Also old paints, stains and varnishes and pesticides.

TVW: That is a very broad range of things. Do you have a specific topic for those?

Hartsock: Actually household hazardous waste, if it’s helpful for your listeners, ordinary household products that contain hazardous substances become hazardous waste once we no longer have use for them and we need to dispose of them. So if you read the label, you’ll see keywords. There are cleaners, automotive supplies, and various fluids — even beauty products. Also, pesticides and herbicides, swimming pool products are also included, that if discarded carelessly can cause environmental harm.

TVW: What are the categories of toxicity?

Hartsock: The categories are toxic, and that means that the materials are poisonous or could cause long-term illness. You can look for words like harmful or fatal if swallowed, or use only in a well-ventilated area.
Another category is flammable which means that a material can be combustible. You would look for words like, “Do not use near heat or flame,” or, “Do not smoke while using this product.” Another category is corrosive. That means that the material could eat through some other material. You would look for words on the label like, “Causes severe burns” or “Can burn eyes, skin or throat.” The last category is reactive, and that indicates that the substance can explode. There are few products on the market now that are explosive, except for fireworks. But, some older products that may still be stored in homes could be reactive.

TVW: You may have already answered this, but how do you know if something is hazardous.

Hartsock: Well, actually the label will tell you, and there are three key words to look for. Look for the words danger, warning or caution. If you see danger, that is an indicator of the most toxic or most hazardous type of material that you would find as a consumer. Warning or caution would still mean you would need to manage that specially, use caution when you use it around the home, but especially when disposing of it.

TVW: What do you recommend to dispose of household waste?

Hartsock: Well first and foremost, never pour hazardous household waste down the drain and never pour it on the ground and never pour it in the gutter.  If you are going to dispose of household hazardous waste, make sure you keep it in its original container. Place it safely in your trash for pickup. However, what we really recommend is people to look for local collections. In Indiana, communities around the state hold what we call “Tox-Away Days,” and they’ll hold those routinely, and people can take their substances there when they are cleaning out in the spring, it’s a perfect time. And you can see them all over the state. So if you can check with your local city, town or county and find out if there are local collections for old things such as paints, old cleaners you might have around the house, old gasoline that might be gummy, pesticides you no longer need or want to discard. That is the perfect way to manage those substances so they are not accidentally released into the environment or so that neighbors can’t come into contact with something in the trash.

TVW: What are some of the dangers of pouring down the sink, or on the ground?

Hartsock: Our wastewater treatment facilities are not … let me start over.
In large quantities, hazardous materials can cause problems at our wastewater treatment plants. If these products are poured out on the ground or poured in the gutter or accidentally spilled they can actually contaminate local streams or lakes because they can find their way through the storm sewers in our waterways. So that is the reason we want to prevent improper disposal or accidental release and make sure they are properly managed.

TVW: What are some resources about disposal for homeowners?

Hartsock: In Indiana, we have IDEM’s recycling website. Folks can visit us online about general info on household hazardous waste and that address is www.recycle.in.gov. You can also go to U.S. EPA’s website for its office of solid waste and click on the link for household hazardous waste and that is address is www.epa.gov/osw.

TVW: Great! Us there anything else you would like to add for our listeners?

Hartsock:  As far as what to do with these old materials old products, another idea is to donate or reuse items to friends or community organizations, if there are items that are not expired and still in good condition. Some neighborhoods hold exchanges, or community organizations will accept those things, so that’s another idea.

TVW: Well, thanks so much Amy!

Hartsock: Thank you!


Phone interview on March 18 , 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Arin Blair, owner of FiFi’s Earth Friendly Cleaning in Columbus, Ohio.

Twinkle VanWinkle: What are your name, company and location?

Arin Blair: My name is Arin Blair, my company is FiFi’s Earth Friendly
Cleaning and we are in Columbus, Ohio.

TVW: What does your company do that would define them as “green friendly”?

Blair: Well, the core of our earth-friendliness is our cleaning products. We use all-natural, non-toxic and biodegradable cleaning products. On top of that, the company that makes them is certified carbon-neutral company. Also they are super-concentrated so that decreases their weight, which decreases their carbon emissions. Sending them to us. Then also we use unbleached, recycled towels and our vacuum decreases indoor air pollution with a HEPA filter.

TVW: What services do you offer?

Blair: Our services? We do moderate dusting. We do full cleaning of all bathrooms and kitchens. We do floors, mopping. We do also, when we first come, we wash all woodwork in people’s houses. Keep up on the baseboards, cobwebs, and ceiling fans. We do window cleaning upon request and microwaves and other custom things when our clients discuss those things with us.

TVW: Do you have to be certified?

Blair: You just have to have a service vendor’s license, that’s all.

TVW: Do you have to be bonded or insured?

Blair: You don’t have to be. We’re insured. But you only have to have a service vendor’s license and be registered as a business in your state.

TVW: How do you dispose of chemical substances that you use or that you come across as you are doing a job?

Blair: Well, we don’t use any, so I do know how homeowner might do so. All conventional cleaning products are considered hazardous waste, so it’s very important for people to understand that. You have to take them to a facility for hazardous waste. I know that here in Columbus, they do events around the city several times a year so that you can take your chemicals to a designated place and find that online at waaco.org. That’s our trash company here. And also they have a permanent facility here now and it’s down by the fairgrounds that you can take chemicals to. Although they do recommend that if you have paint, if you can keep it away form children and domestic animals obviously. If you can open up your paint and let it dry, it’s then safe to then peel out of the container and throw away, if it’s completely dry.

TVW: For someone who has never had a cleaning service, is there anything they must do to prepare themselves before you arrive?

Blair: Well, the biggest thing we tell people is not to clean before we come. A lot of people are tempted to clean up, to vacuum before we get there because they’re embarrassed. So we give some of our clients a hard time about that because they are embarrassed about their dust bunnies. The biggest thing you can do is pick up as much clutter as you possibly can. The more accessible surfaces you have the cleaner your house is going to get when you have a cleaning service.

TVW: Do you know of any other resources for homeowners?

Blair: I do know that if you are curious about your cleaning products and what they have in them, there is a website you can look up. The chemicals that are in cleaning products which is really interesting information to see what you have in your house. It’s www.householdproducts.nlm.nih.gov/ingredients

TVW: How much of your clientele is environmentally conscious?

Blair: I would say about half. It’s less than you think. I think that a lot of people don’t see cleaning products as being dangerous. When you walk into the super store there they are, a huge aisle. Every single brand, every single product has chemicals that are hazardous to your health, hazardous to your children and animals. People don’t really understand it, though, I think.

TVW: Have you seen a rise in clients who are green conscious?

Blair: I have. Absolutely, I see especially with the Method brand, a lot of people have gotten that into their homes. And you see just a smattering of here and there of hand soaps or hand sanitizer or spray bottle here and there that people are kind of making choices and trying new products. So I have definitely seen a rise in that.

TVW: You mentioned, about your products that your company used, that they were carbon neutral. Can you explain that?

Blair: The company that we get our cleaning products from is called Shaklee. It’s their “Get Clean” line. They are a certified carbon-neutral company. I’m sorry I can’t tell who certified. I know it’s a reputable institution, but I don’t have that information right now. Whatever carbon emissions they do produce they offset them by doing other works. There is a town, I think in Sri Lanka, where they went and replaced all their kerosene lanterns with solar lanterns. So they do different environmental works. They plant tons of trees. So it offsets so they have a net zero impact on the environment. They also do things to reduce their footprint. In their new facility they used all 100 percent recycled lumber and recycled fiber carpets, and solar panels. As a company as a whole they are very ecologically conscious.

TVW: Is there anything you would like to add?

Blair: We have a Shaklee website that I’d love to direct people to. It’s www.shaklee.net/earthfriendlyworks. We do our best to get the information out there about cleaning products and how easy it is to switch from regular cleaning products to earth-friendly cleaning products. And that they are effective and they are safe and how important it is for your health as well as the environment. That’s kind of our biggest thing I think more than cleaning people’s house, which we also enjoy.


Phone interview on March 19, 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Julieth Garcia-Kontos, owner of Organic Cleaning Services of Charlotte, N.C.


TVW: Let me start of by getting your name, where you are located and what your company is, if you don’t mind.

Julieth Garcia-Kontos: My name is Julieth Garcia-Kontos. My name is hyphenated. I own Organic Cleaning Services, which is located in mainly, Charlotte. We service five different counties, which includes Mecklenburg County, Lincoln County, Gaston County, Union County and York County in South Carolina. We are right on the border of South Carolina and North Carolina. We are like 20 minutes form South Carolina.

TVW: What do you do you do that would define your company’s practices as “green-friendly?”

Garcia-Kontos: Pretty much, Organic Cleaning Services practices what it preaches. Not only do we want to offer the best house and office cleaning experience a client can have but also we want to make sure the customer becomes more self-conscious about the cleanliness of their homes, because of how if it smells clean, it doesn’t mean it’s clean. We use products that are green-seal certified. We use micro-fiber cloths that require less use of cleaning supplies. Green cleaning is more than just using cleaning solutions, because if you are spreading germs from room to room with your cleaning cloth, or blowing dust mites back into the air when you vacuum, then your families health could still be at risk. We also the practice the three R’s, which are: reduce, reuse, and recycle. The benefit of green cleaning products is verified by the increase of indoor air quality. Less toxic products positively can directly affect your indoor quality and your family’s health can improve dramatically.

TVW: How do you dispose of chemicals that you may come across when you are cleaning a home, such as unused paint or other hazardous waste?

Garcia-Kontos: What we do is contact each county. Each county has its own local solid waste and recycling center. We can conveniently locate it through the Yellow Pages or a search engine. We can either set up an appointment for them to come and pick it up or we can deliver it the materials to them. Things like old paint, if it is dry and it doesn’t have the lid is can be disposed of in the public works. If you still have paint in it, it is better just to call the county and see which one of their centers is accepting that specific item. Also when we have any doubts about something, we contact or check the website for the EPA.

TVW: Why should you hire a green-friendly cleaning company?

Garcia-Kontos: Just because a product at the store says natural or green, it doesn’t necessarily mean it is safe.  It could still contain ingredients that could be harmful. A good rule of thumb is, if you can’t pronounce it — don’t buy it. My company is constantly doing this research and more and more people have the desire to adopt an environmental friendly lifestyle. American families are overworked, especially during this time of economic recession. They have to work really hard leaving then with very little time for their families and friends and grocery shopping — doing stuff like that. This is where a housecleaning business will come in. Now the question is which one to hire because there are so many out there. To me the answer is obvious. Why would somebody hire a company that is using traditional cleaning products versus organic companies that we offer a cleaning service that is also to clean the environment inside the house? We are taking over this responsibility for the family. Why wouldn’t someone hire a green-friendly company? Because we do the work that any other traditional cleaner company is doing but more than that we are also cleaning the air and helping the environment as well.

TVW: What services do you offer?

Garcia-Kontos: I offer residential services, office cleaning window and blind washing, garage clean up, refrigerator, oven cleaning and power washing. We also do party services. We also remove furniture and we do aromatherapy.

TVW: Do you have to be certified?

Garcia-Kontos: The cleaning service does not have to be certified. The product does. The EPA recommends environmentally friendly products that fit the green seal standard. I know that to be certified with a green seal a product must go through extensive testing to prove that it positively effects the individual’s behavior and standard of life.

TVW: For a cleaning service, do you have to be licensed or insured?

Garcia-Kontos: Organic Cleaning Services is licensed in North Carolina. We are not licensed in South Carolina because less than 10 percent of our clientele is from there. Our main business is located in North Carolina and we are licensed in North Carolina. A cleaning business doesn’t have to be bonded or insured, but my company is. My bond is for $10,000 and my general liability is for $1 million.

TVW: Do you recommend that?

Garcia-Kontos: Definitely. Because in the event that one of the cleaners breaks an item that is very expensive, the bond is going to cover the company, to make sure that item is either fixed or replaced. The liability is more like say the one of the cleaners leaves a vacuum somewhere and the customer is passing by, trips over, falls and then breaks a hip. Then the liability is going to cover that accident for the customer. None of this is going towards the homeowners insurance.

TVW: For someone who has never had a cleaning service, is there something that you would suggest to prepare before you come into their home?

Garcia-Kontos: Someone who has never had a cleaning service, they don’t know what to expect from a cleaning service. I always ask that they be prepared with questions. We are here to serve customers. We are constantly serving customers and likewise we want to know specifically from the customer what they are expecting form us. No two households are alike. No two customers are alike. So we want to make sure that we know what their specifications and priorities are. When I go to a house I ask as many questions as I can just to make sure that we can fit that necessity for the customer. We like to meet all the members of the household as possible because, this is going to make customers feel more comfortable since we are going to go into their home and be handling their possessions. When it comes to switching from traditional cleaners to organic cleaners, I tell customers to not be afraid of the switch. In many circumstances, we have to walk the customer through this whole process because they have this misleading idea that if there is no Clorox involved then it is not effective.

TVW: What resources do you suggest for homeowners for disposing of hazardous waste such as old paint, automotive waste and old cleaners?

Garcia-Kontos: Whatever you do don’t put them down the drain, do not throw the products down your sink or the sewer line or don’t throw them away in the garbage. I would say that is the first thing not to do.  If these items are not disposed of properly they may end up contaminating lakes, streams or soil. In time they may pose a threat to the environment or the public health. Your local solid waste service depending on where you live will collect and recycle these items — such as paint, thinners, flammables, oils, pesticides, batteries, full chemicals, and even cooking oil they will collect. Whenever a customer is in doubt, I tell them to go to the EPA website which is www.epa.gov.

TVW: How much of your current clientele is environmentally conscious?

Garcia-Kontos: We are constantly receiving referrals from customers who are happy with our services and they just want to tell their friends and families. Many of them are not so green-conscious. People still use chemical cleaning products and a big possibility that contributes to this problem is that individuals are not well educated on the harmful effects of the product on the environment and nature. Not only that I have heard like, if you don’t use bleach, then how do you know it’s good? Customers like this I like to slowly introduce them to green cleaning. I still have a small percentage of customers that are completely organic, but definitely working there way there.  On the other hand, customers that find me on my website or search engines are clients that are more self-conscious about green cleaning and they specifically know what they are looking for.

TVW: Have you seen a rise in clients who are green conscious?

Garcia-Kontos: Yes. Absolutely. A high percentage of my clients have picked up my card from organic marketplaces. And more clients are approaching me just for the fact that I am organic. Actually I had a client that sold his house because his real estate agent had noted in the package that his house was a green-cleaned house.

 TVW: Is there anything you would like to add that maybe we missed?

Garcia-Kontos: I think it’s important like I stated before, that a lot of people are not educated about green cleaning. They believe that if your house doesn’t smell like Lysol or there isn’t Clorox or bleach involved that the house is not clean. A lot of these products are there at the organic market place or even at your local grocery store. They have a lot of products that are green friendly. A lot of them still have chemicals, but the percentage is very small compared to traditional cleaners. Switching is so easy. It’s a matter of getting used to a new product. Not only is this going to help the environment that we live in but the people that live in the house, including pets, children and senior citizens. I have had people and customers who had asthma problems or allergic reactions to different things and they didn’t know what it was until they switched and they really noted a dramatic increase in their health. So it’s not just about a green cleaning, it’s also about how your health is optimized.






Phone interview on March 19, 2009, between Twinkle VanWinkle, associate podcast producer for Angie’s List “List-en Up!” and Antoinette Nue,  green living consultant of Atlanta, Ga.

TVW: Will you please tell me your name, location and what makes you the Green Goddess?

Antoinette Nue: My full name is Antoinette Nue and I am professionally known as the Green Living Goddess. I work from a home office in Clarkston, Ga., which is a saucy little suburb of Atlanta, which is about 2 miles wide and 2 miles long. What makes me the Green Living Goddess, I have a seven- or eight-year history in the green living business, professionally in the green building products and sustainable products in central Eastern Europe in the early in the century. I have transitioned from selling green building products and marketing green building products, to being a green builder and a green living consultant and now as I have expanded my studies and research and my focus into other facets outside of the green building industry.

TVW: What are some of the more hazardous household products that you know of?

Nue: Probably the most hazardous household products are those that are designed to kill, like bug sprays that are designed to kill bugs. They also do harm to pets and animals, fish, as well as small children with respiratory challenges. I use my nose for starters. If it smells offensive in any way or is offensive to your respiratory system, it’s probably toxic. It is designed to do a heavy-duty job, like protect wood floors or a wax, its probably toxic. If it’s designed to fight stubborn clogs, like drain cleaners, it’s probably toxic. Now there are alternative products on the market now that are people friendly. Now I call products people friendly, because they’ve got to be people friendly first and certainly if they are friendly to people then they are friendly to our environment. Those are two ways I can tell if things are toxic or hazardous. Beyond just reading the label, just reading the label will say so for sure.

TVW: How can you know if something is hazardous?

Nue: There is a real distinction on the labels now. Now I use these terms loosely. These are some of the terms that some of the products manufacturers use even though the FDA has not been specific in their definition on the behalf of the consumers. You can still see that labels that are more people friendly labels are friendlier than the labels on a toxic product. So for starters if a label looks friendly and lists all of the ingredients, and those ingredients are vegetable based — in the case of cleaners, there are vegetable based cleaners. Coconut oil is a good cleaner; vegetable oil is a good cleaner. When it lists those products in their entirety and tells you what each one of them does, and then it is people friendly and environment friendly. It may also tell you what is not in that product. It may say no ammonia, no alkaline, just a variety of things that people have been conditioned out look out for as being dangerous. But that might go so far as saying it doesn’t contain this or that.  Now on the other hand, the products that are hazardous the labels will use words like caution, or toxic or danger. When you see those, those are the key words. When you read a little closer you will see what those dangers are. It will also list those toxins. Manufacturers aren’t required to list all of their product’s ingredients, but if it could be considered to be hazardous to your health, they are required to list it. So start by reading the label, and if you are so inclined, and if the package allows you to, open it and smell it. Because your nose is your second line of defense. If it smells in anyway pungent or strong or even slightly offensive, then it is probably hazardous.

TVW: What are some properties of hazardous products? What can they do?

Nue: They are hazardous to your health. Certain products can cause corrosion. Not just to materials you might use them on, but to your skin as well. That is one class of hazardous products. Another class of hazardous products is one that is hazardous to the environment. Some products are more easily filtered out of our water than other products. So when you are pouring products down the sink there is always the possibility that they won’t be completely filtered out of our water systems. In fact, different organizations have done studies on particular cities water and they found significant traces of anti-depressants. I think even one found traces of a chemical used to make Teflon in this water. So those products that passed through a human system, ended up in the water system and were not able to be filtered out of the water completely. Now, the flipside of that is that those cities had determined that those trace amounts of those chemicals were determined not to be dangerous, but they still exist and there is no way to know over the long term what kind of negative or consequences one might suffer from the results of drinking water with those chemicals in it with those trace amounts. Some of the other hazards that are being talked about by people about the environment, if you throw something that’s hazardous away, we typically may or may not think much about it. We think it’s in a landfill so it’s safe because the landfill will last. The intent was to build the landfills to last. A lot of times toxic or hazardous chemicals leech through the lining of landfills and contaminate the surrounding environment. That smell that you pass by sometimes that smells like rotten eggs is chemicals whose odors could not be contained in the landfills. As pungent as those smells are from the highway you smell as you are passing by imagine how much more pungent they are in the space that they are occupying. In order to create that smell that you smell as you are driving by, the toxicity has compounded over the time that they have been there. It makes them that much more potent when they seep through the lining of the landfill. So a lot of those things are changing but it is still a hazard.

TVW: So how should we dispose of household waste? What are some alternatives to just throwing it away or pouring it down the sink?

Nue: There is of course recycling, but to start with if you start by choosing less toxic materials then disposing of them when you have to when you can’t recycle them doesn’t become such a hazard to the environment. I would say let’s start by reading the labels, and choosing products that are less hazardous, less toxic, more people friendly. And when we have to dispose of them, it doesn’t become such a hazard. Let’s look at cleaning products. I have seen people after mopping pour a bucket of water down the driveway. I have seen neighbors do that. And it ends up in the sewer system, ending up either being treated by your sewer system or ending up in the nearby lake and stream. If you start by using less toxic products, No. 1, and you pour them down the toilet or down the drain; they do get treated by your city’s sewage system and recycled into our drinking water and in some cases the city supplies are used for non-potable resources. The less toxic the product you are pouring in, the less likely it is to be in its end use. In the case of paint: There are a couple of things we can do with paint. We can recycle paint by giving it away to companies or organizations like theatre companies. Theatre companies are always willing to take small amounts of paint because they do different sets and they are able to mix different colors to get the color the need. They are always happy to take small amounts of paint. I have seen on a couple of different websites that Habitat for Humanity will accept open cans of paint. In Atlanta, I’ve checked and [Habitat for Humanity] Restore does not accept opened cans of paint. They will take paint that is unopened or “oops” paint. They won’t take those cans that you have a half a gallon left over because you bought too much paint to begin with. IN terms of paint, I would say first buy the minimum amount that you need. Every manufacturer offers a low and no VLC. The label will say no VLC. For starters, you boost the amount of a pint that you buy, and secondly if you have a half a gallon left over, make the time to go ahead and use that. It won’t hurt your walls to go ahead and use that extra half-gallon or half quart. It’s an extra layer that goes on your walls and even less that goes into the landfill if you are not able to recycle it.  So start by reducing the amount you use and buy. Use what you do buy, use all of it. In the event that you have paint that is sitting in the garage or in the shed that no one can use or no one wants to take it, it is recommended and let it dry out. Put cat litter in it.  Or if you live with and love a handyman, there may be some sawdust around or some dirt in that can and allow that paint to harden. Once it hardens you can pull that paint out in solid form and throw the paint in the trashcan to be delivered to the landfill and recycle the can, if it can be recycled. So that is how I would recommend we treat paint. What are some other household products that we might see excesses of? Automotive waste, that is a tough one. Remember when I said earlier if you look at the intent of the product, that is what the product was designed to do. Automotive products like oil or antifreeze that is used to keep your car running smoothly for months on end is very likely to be high on the toxicity scale. The best way to dispose of things like that is through the hazardous waste recycling center in your neighborhood. EPA, the Environmental Protection Agency, at www.epa.gov has lists of recycling plants for that kind of material, which you can access by zip code. I always use that as a resource. www.earth911.org is another possibility for checking out where you can dispose of hazardous waste like automotive products.  In general, those are high on the scale of toxicity and hazardous materials and do need to be treated carefully. Most petroleum-based products, of course, don’t mix with water, so there are guidelines that prohibit pouring that stuff down the drain. It does still happen, but that’s been prohibited for at least a decade.

TVW: What would you say were some of the most important things for a person to think about when they begin their spring cleaning as far as thinking about themselves and the environment?

Nue: Clean carefully. Choose products that are going to be people and environmentally friendly. If you’re starting from scratch, that is, you have already looked in the cupboard and it’s bare and you have to start from in terms of what you are cleaning and what you are buying, to accomplish the end, choose carefully. Look for the labels that look friendly, that look non-toxic, that look non-dangerous, non-hazardous. Look for those labels first. Read the full ingredient label. And buy only what you think you’ll need. See if those products are able to multi-task. If you know you want to clean the kitchen from top to bottom, look at products that will allow you to clean the glass tables, as well as clean your tile floors, as well as clean your natural stone counters. Use products that are sensitive to cleaning all of those. Perhaps there is a multi-purpose product that you can use to do all of your cleaning and keep your waxing to a minimum. Again you can choose a wax that will just as easily clean and shine your cabinets as it would your wood chairs as it would your wood floor. If you are cleaning your closets or you’re cleaning rooms that have gathered a lot of dust over time, don’t reach for an air freshener first. Don’t reach for something that’s going to attract dust, or a dust magnet. First start by emptying your vacuum cleaner bag and use your vacuum to suck that material up so that it doesn’t get back in the air. A duster typically doesn’t pick up dust. It just moves it form one place to the other. So if you use a vacuum cleaner, and changed your vacuum bag, then you are sucking in that air and it can be thrown away when you are finishing a particular job, so that’s not an additional pollution floating around your home after you finish your spring cleaning. That is just two tips I can think of off the top of my head.

TVW: What would you suggest for consumers that might want to hire a cleaning company? What are some questions that they might want to ask before they hire?

Nue: I would ask, “What kind of products do you use?” If they can tell you if they use people-friendly or environment-friendly products, that’s a good start. If they can tell you what lines they use, then you can do your own research — Google the product line they say they use. Look for a company that doesn’t come in with a bunch of rolls of paper towels, but rather using newspaper to clean your glass table tops and your windows, because that is something that has already finished its use, but has another life in the way of reusing it. I would look for a company that just can answer all your questions — how they operate, what products they use and what concerns they have about the environment. If they are not committed to being environmentally friendly then their answers will reflect that. Do they themselves recycle? Do they themselves reduce and reuse? Their language will reflect that, and if you listen carefully you will be able to hear.

TVW: What are some resources for consumers, homeowners, when looking for things about hazardous household disposal, even buying cleaning products?  Where are some places they can go to for research?

Nue: The Sierra Club has a good website with information about safe alternatives to household products. I don’t know if I mentioned about pesticides, or bug spray, but they have a recipe for bug spray. I don’t use it, but I’m one of those folks that when a bug gets in the house I just fan it back outside. I found a recipe on Sierra Club website awhile back and sure it’s still there, for environmentally friendly bug spray. Bugs tend to get in the house as it warms up and the first thing we tend to do is want to pick up a can of bug spray. Well the Sierra Club’s recipe is completely all-natural.  Surprisingly the products that are the basis of this bug spray are offensive to our noses, but are all-natural. I think garlic is one of the products, and onion and cayenne pepper. Let me clarify that there are products that are offensive to our noses, but are healthy, like some of the vegetable-based cleaners and bug spray. www.earth991.org is a good resource. And the www.epa.gov is another one. The good thing is they all have search boxes and you can enter your keyword and be taken either right to the page you are looking for or very close to it.

TVW: Anything you would like to add that I may have left out, or you think would add to our conversation to help out consumers?

Nue: I think I’m happy that more and more people are interested in how to be green as they do their spring cleaning. That’s a big ritual for us and it brings us a renewed sense of energy and a new sense of life. To go into that process thinking environmentally friendly, thinking natural, thinking people-friendly, and using those products that are is bound to bring a different level of energy and harmony to your house. I think that’s a great place to start. Using spring cleaning as a good springboard can really kind of change things for your house and for the health of your indoor atmosphere. I’m always happy to help and to advise about that kind of stuff and to be a resource. I think those resources that we mentioned are a good start.