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54 Things You Can Declutter from Your Home | Apartment Therapy

https://www.apartmenttherapy.com/things-to-declutter-from-storage-31034503?utm_source=popsugar.com&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=pubexchange_facebook

54 Things Absolutely Nobody Should be Storing, Anywhere

by Shifrah Combiths

Have you ever had guests over and then for some reason needed to move a piece of furniture, like the ottoman or an armchair? You hope nobody notices the crumbs and missing LEGO bricks, but still blow your own cover by apologizing for the mess. It's the housekeeping equivalent of getting caught with your pants down.

If someone were to poke through your storage areas and see all the things you're needlessly keeping, the feeling would probably be the same: Suddenly aware and feeling awkward about things you very easily could have handled, but haven't.

Here is a big list of things that none of us has any business keeping:

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1. The fondue set from your wedding registry that you haven't used once in your 12 years of marriage.
2. A stack of retired sheets you tell yourself you're going to use as drop cloths for when you paint, but you still just buy the drop cloths every time.
3. Your old cell phones.
4. The Beanie Babies you're hoarding in case they become valuable one day.
5. Pillows you've retired from the beds that you keep in case you have some giant slumber party that never happens. (You don't even like to share a room on vacation!)
6. Baby clothes you wore 35 years ago that your mother saved for you. (Thanks, Mom, but they've got to go.)
7. Expensive jeans you haven't fit into since 2011.
8. Costume jewelry you like so little that you'd let your toddler play dress-up with it if it weren't a choking hazard.
9. Cookbooks you haven't cracked since you were inspired to go vegan six years ago.
10. That refillable popcorn bucket you swear you're actually going to remember to bring to Disney next time you go.
11. Takeout menus from restaurants whose dishes you know by heart by now. (And, you know, they're online.)
12. Coupons you will actually never remember to pull out before they expire.
13. Magazines you're keeping in the unlikely event you get struck by the urge to make rolled paper baskets.
14. Clothes from 15 years ago, because you know if you hang onto them long enough they'll come back in style again. But also, you remember the trend when it happened the first time, so the resurgence is just going to make you cringe.
15. The boots that sit on the top shelf in your closet because you loved them so much when you got them in school… like 20 years ago.
16. Printed photo outtakes and duplicates.
17. Stuffed animals that your children used to love but haven't asked for in over six months.
18. Chipped mugs that are "otherwise perfectly fine."
19. Holiday decorations that make you groan every single winter when you see them in the bin.
20. Full tubes of old, old lotion.
21. Candles whose smell you don't like. Burning those would be the opposite of relaxing.
22. Extra vases. All the extra vases.
23. The cabinet full of washed-out, empty jars you never, ever use.
24. Orphan socks that have been in the orphaned sock basket for two years.
25. Retired cameras with obsolete mega pixel counts.
26. Decorative olive oil bottles your friend brought from Italy a decade ago.
27. Dregs of perfume you no longer wear. It's not going to smell any prettier.
28. French fried onions from Thanksgiving three years ago. The "best by" date is long gone and you know you're going to buy another container this year anyway.
29. Yellowed white extra power cords. They're so old they're a fire hazard.
30. Curtain rods. If you add more windows to your house, you can probably spring for another set of curtain rods.
31. Extra lamp shades. Any new lamps will almost certainly not fit or match them anyway.
32. Cassette mix tapes. Do you even have a player? Take a pic and toss. (Maybe keep one for posterity. )
33. Those extra water bottles you're keeping around for that hypothetical spontaneous hike you take when you have 15 guests over (and none of them have their own water bottles).
34. Duck sauce packages. You have a surplus problem.
35. The extra napkins you snagged when you picked up your to-go order. The only place those belong is the glove box of the car.
36. Old chemical cleaners you wouldn't touch with a 10-foot pole but hang onto anyway.
37. Cleaning toothbrushes in excess of one per sink.
38. The old t-shirt stash you kept for cleaning but never, ever reach for.
39. Themed party decorations. No, you will not use them for the next kid in four years.
40. Holey socks you kept for cleaning the blinds. Do yourself a favor and use a duster like this one.
41. Your old soccer sliders. (Unless your kid fits them by now.)
42. Swimsuits you wouldn't feel awesome wearing.
43. Archaic kitchen tools you never use and only keep because they were passed down by your relatives.
44. Old, dented, or cracked helmets. They're not safe.
45. Baby items that have been recalled.
46. Baby items if your youngest kid is over five. Yes, you're the closest you've ever been to having that hypothetical last baby, but are you having that hypothetical last baby?
47. Books you don't even remember reading and aren't TBRs.
48. VHS tapes.
49. Incandescent light bulbs.
50. Accessories for vacuums you no longer own.
51. That tangle of extra cords and chargers for devices you've replaced.
52. Table linens you'd never use again. It's okay to realize your taste has changed drastically since you bought that autumnal table runner as a newlywed.
53. The bags of seashells you've been saving for seven years for an unspecified craft.
54. Boxes you've been hoarding just in case you need to mail things. You have three more Prime boxes headed your way next week alone. You'll be fine.

Honestly the list goes on. You might not relate to everything on the list, but it probably inspired a few similar thoughts. The idea is to be open and honest with yourself about what you need to hang on to.

Avoid casting things off to a landfill, if you're able. Many of these things can be resold locally or donated to another home.

Published: May 9, 2019

• Organize & Clean
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~A.

Cook Bacon In Water For Perfect Texture - Simplemost

https://www.simplemost.com/cook-bacon-in-water-perfect-texture/?partner=trueanthem&utm_campaign=trueanthem&utm_content=5d66db0e420dde0001e755c3&utm_medium=bestof&utm_source=facebookSM

This Is How You Should Cook Bacon For Perfect Texture And No Splattering

Megan FennoAugust 16, 2017

You'll never go back to your old method!

Adobe

Cooking bacon can be a hassle. Grease splatters everywhere, some pieces get burnt while others come out underdone and it's an overall mess.

Fortunately, there is one trick that is said to not only make bacon easier to cook, but will leave the strips both crisp and tender, rather than dry and crumbly.

And that trick is to simply cook it in water.

Wondering how this method will prevent the dreaded bacon splatter from happening? Of course you are. It's because the fat content in the bacon will almost completely render once the water you're cooking it in reaches a boil.

cyclonebill/Flickr

So How Do You Cook Bacon In Water?

According to America's Test Kitchen, place the bacon in just enough water to cover it in a skillet over high heat. At first it might seem like there's too much water in your skillet, but that additional water will help keep the cooking temperature low so the meat will retain its moisture, which ultimately leaves your bacon tender.

Once the water reaches a boil, you'll want to reduce the heat to medium. When the bacon starts to turn crispy and appears to be well-browned, then it's likely done cooking and ready to go.

Watch the video below for full instructions for cooking bacon in water:

A Difference In Opinions

There's been a debate, though, about how much water you actually need to achieve this perfectly cooked bacon.

According to The Kitchn, it's not necessary to completely cover the bacon slices with water. Not only will it take longer to bring the water to a boil, but you'll likely achieve the same beautifully cooked strips by adding just enough water to cover the bottom of your skillet.

Perhaps this is a good excuse to cook bacon twice in the near future — you know, just to see which amount of water should be added to the skillet.

Adobe

The Microwave Method

If you haven't yet made the jump from cooking bacon on the stove or in the oven to the microwave — a whole new splatter-free world awaits you!

There are a bunch of microwave-safe bacon trays out there (you can buy one on Amazon for around $13) that help to cook bacon quickly and wick away grease at the same time, like the one below.

Nordic Ware/Amazon

The Zero-Mess Microwave Method

If you're short on time and looking for an even easier clean-up than the method above, you should try this mess-free microwave method for your next bacon-making session.

If you don't have a tray — or simply are looking for a way to cook bacon without having anything at all to clean afterward — the YouTube video below will show you how it's done.

Adobe

This method uses paper plates and paper towels exclusively, so there's literally nothing to clean up after you cook your bacon.

Plus there's a sweet bonus: This method calls for you to arrange the bacon into heart shapes before popping it into the microwave.

As TipHero points out, you can replicate this bacon-making approach with any microwave-safe plate if you don't have paper plates on hand or want to reduce waste.

RELATED: This Bacon Toaster Breakfast Gadget Lets You Skip The Frying

We were not paid to write this story. The products and services mentioned below were selected independent of sales and advertising. However, Simplemost may receive a small commission from the purchase of any products or services through an affiliate link to the retailer's website.

~A.

Is your takeout lunch bowl covered in toxic 'forever chemicals'? | Joe Fassler | Opinion | The Guardian

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/aug/16/is-your-takeout-lunch-bowl-covered-in-toxic-forever-chemicals

Is your takeout lunch bowl covered in toxic 'forever chemicals'?

Joe FasslerFri 16 Aug 2019 03.00 EDT

Compostable bowls are considered eco-friendly, but they are covered in chemicals that persist indefinitely and are linked to troubling health effects

For years, disposable bowls have been a stalwart ally of the fast-casual restaurant. Beige, earthy-looking and made from molded plant fibers, these receptacles appear less wasteful than single-use plastic, lending an aura of social responsibility to the eateries that use them. Some varieties are even certified compostable, which means they're guaranteed to break down in commercial composting facilities, if not the backyard leaf pile. And while only a few chains actually run composting programs, these bowls still feel lighter-touch somehow – even when they're simply shipped to the landfill. They suggest a higher-minded way of eating, one based on a form of packaging that's almost as ephemeral as our encounters with it.

But fast-casual bowls have a troubling secret: virtually all of them contain worrisome chemicals that never biodegrade, polluting soil, water and our bodies in the process. The truth is that, though you might only handle your salad bowl for five minutes, traces of it will stick around in the environment for ever.

That was the central finding of an investigative feature I published last week in the New Food Economy, a non-profit newsroom covering the forces shaping American food, where I'm deputy editor. I spent months interviewing more than a dozen scientists, food service industry experts, packaging professionals and waste management leaders. Everyone I spoke to said the same thing: the familiar bowls all contain PFAS, or per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, a broad class of "forever chemicals" that persist indefinitely and have been linked to troubling health effects.

We didn't just take them at their word. The New Food Economy did its own testing of bowls from eight different Manhattan restaurants, including multiple locations of Chipotle, Dig and Sweetgreen – restaurants that run ambitious composting programs and claim their bowls have significant environmental benefits. The results were striking. All 18 bowls tested contained high levels of fluorine, according to Graham Peaslee, the University of Notre Dame chemist who conducted our test. Peaslee and other scientists I spoke to say this leaves no doubt that these bowls were manufactured using PFAS, confirming what industry leaders had told me: that all takeout containers made from molded plant fibers contain these chemicals. This widespread use of PFAS in "compostable" bowls had been a closely guarded industry secret, and had not been reported previously. You can read my investigation here.

PFAS do a great job protecting bowls from heat, moisture and grease. Without them, the plant-based material would be much more delicate, falling to pieces quickly during contact with a salad or hot meal. But that usefulness is a faustian bargain. Speaking broadly, PFAS are manmade compounds characterized by powerful carbon-fluorine bonds, a kind of molecular armor that makes it impossible for enzymes and microbes to attack. This makes them great at repelling grease, but it's also why they don't break down – and why they're so concerning for public health.

Thankfully, the most concerning varieties of PFAS – PFOS and PFOA, which have been linked to a broad range of serious health effects – have been banned or phased out by industry. But the newer varieties approved for use in food packaging by the FDA have risks of their own, concerns summarized by German government scientists in the peer-reviewed journal Environmental Sciences Europe. First, they're just as persistent as the older varieties, remaining in the environment for unknown periods of time. They also take days or months for humans to excrete, meaning they accumulate quickly in our bodies. While the scientists write that these compounds carry a "risk of adverse effects on humans and the environment, which will rise with increasing exposure", we do not yet know what those effects may be. Unlike PFOS and PFOA, which have been extensively evaluated, many of the newer varieties of PFAS have simply not been studied for potential health impacts.

That's concerning. It means that, when it comes to "compostable" bowls, we literally don't know what we are eating. It's not just that the compounds being used haven't been properly studied. Troublingly, several of the restaurants I spoke to would not – or could not – tell me which specific compounds were present in their bowls, something our test did not measure.

Still, the scientists I spoke to were concerned by any use of PFAS in food packaging. While many pesticides and solvents are considered toxic at parts-per-million levels in drinking water, PFAS tend to be considered dangerous at parts per trillion levels – a much lower threshold than other chemicals of concern. While dozens of PFAS are still approved by FDA for food contact applications, the agency is currently reviewing whether its existing rules are sufficient to protect public health.

Before I revealed that they contain PFAS, plant-based bowls seemed to be a sustainable solution to the restaurant industry's overwhelming takeout waste problem. Many are made from a renewable byproduct of the sugar-making process – bagasse, the pulpy fiber that is left over after sugarcane is processed. Compared with plastic and foam, which tend to be made from virgin petroleum, this raw material can have a much lower carbon footprint. Unfortunately, it's now clear that the benefit comes with a catch. This is what environmentalists call a "regrettable substitution": when a promising new replacement technology comes with unintended consequences of its own.

The good news, for now, is that one of the industry's key players has taken action. The Biodegradable Packaging Institute (BPI), a leading third-party certifier that assesses compostability claims, will change its stance on fluorinated chemicals starting on 1 January 2020. Currently, a bowl – or any other food packaging product – can contain PFAS and still be certified compostable by BPI. After the new standard kicks in, a product will need to contain less than 100 parts per million total fluorine to be certified. For context, the bowls we tested averaged 1,670 parts per million fluorine – more than 16 times that.

Starting in January, then, if you want to avoid food packaging with PFAS, just make sure to buy products certified compostable by BPI. That sounds simple – but may prove difficult. As of this writing, BPI does not certify any molded fiber products that fall below the threshold. Rhodes Yepsen, BPI's executive director, told me that it will be virtually impossible for a new product to meet the deadline – if one existed, he'd have to know about it already.

In the new year, there will be plenty of options if you want a lunch that's PFAS free – including BPI-certified paperboard boxes, recyclable plastic containers, and even your own reusable vessel. For now, though, PFAS-free bowls are off the table.

• Joe Fassler is deputy editor at the New Food Economy, a non-profit newsroom covering the forces shaping American food

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~A.

Senior Parcours! I'm In....

https://io9.gizmodo.com/scientific-evidence-that-booth-babes-dont-sell-product-1502478423

Scientific evidence that booth babes don't sell products

Annalee Newitz1/16/14 1:33pm

There's been a raging debate over "booth babes" in the tech community for years. Should companies hire sexy models to work in their sales booths at events like CES, or is this an outdated, degrading practice? But nobody had ever asked whether booth babes were good for sales. So Frontback head of marketing Spencer Chen decided to do a scientific experiment and find out.

He went to a big tech show, and managed to get two booths on opposite sides of the show floor. One booth was staffed with the usual booth babes, and the other staffed with older women who were chosen for their knowledge and people skills. The results, which he replicated at subsequent shows, were stark. The booth babes generated only a third of the foot traffic and less than half the sales leads as the staffers in the non-babe booth.

Writes Chen:

My theory from years of being a part of trade show staffs is that the booth babes we hired were actually a drag on lead-gen. Up to that time, it was all empirical evidence based on being at shows where we had money to hire booth babes and events where we didn't. I noticed that we had always done better without the booth babes but it was just silly to suggest that we did better because we didn't have hot babes at the booth. I mean, I had a better chance of convincing my co-workers that the sky was purple.

But here was my chance to put it to the test. So for one booth I flew in professional booth babe talent, and for the other booth I had asked another local agency for a couple of show contractors that knew the local area and had established people skills. I actually had to stress a couple of times that I was not looking for contractors whose only attribute was "smokin'."

Upon arrival at the show, I get an email on my BlackBerry from the regional sales VP to call him ASAP because there's obviously been a big "fuck up" in staffing. I gave him a call and he told me that there were two "grandmothers" hanging around our booth stating that they were a part of our team for the week.

Upon meeting my contractors, my sales VP was right. They weren't just older than your typical booth babe, one was literally a grandmother. Shit, what have I done?? But it was too late now. After updating the sales team on our staffing strategy it was time for the big show.

The results? They were great. The booth that was staffed with the booth babes generated a third of the foot traffic (as measured by conversations or demos with our reps) and less than half the leads (as measured by a badge swipe or a completed contact form) while the other team had a consistently packed booth that ultimately generated over 550 leads, over triple from the previous year.

Everyone on the team was genuinely surprised by the results but duly convinced. It was like showing some hardened sales reps a new golf swing. I was able to replicate this a few more times throughout the year with even better results since we had a chance to further optimize our new "staffing plan."

Chen goes on to offer a few good theories about why booth babes don't convert, and don't result in good sales leads. Most of them boil down to two issues: one, people who are in a good position to do business with your company aren't interested in talking to hired models because they actually want to discuss your products; and two, women who work as booth babes don't usually have the people skills to keep potential buyers interested in the product (as opposed to interested in taking pictures of them). Basically, booth babes attract attention, but not from potential customers.

So next time you or your company is making a booth babe decision, you don't have to try convincing anyone based on ideas of taste or gender equality. Just show them the bottom line.

Read Chen's detailed breakdown of conversion figures, and his analysis, at TechCrunch.

~A.

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