Why Compost?

Posted on January 31, 2013 by Jane Lindley

composting_smEver feel late to the party? A few years ago I got on the composting bandwagon because I knew it was a good idea and most of my friends had composts and we had a little land, so why not?

My husband built us a beauty in our backyard and put a raccoon-proof lid on it. For a while we used it and I researched what to put in it (not meat, dairy or oil) and how to layer it (with leaves, grass clippings, newspaper). Then I waited for the magic heat that never came to turn it all into beautiful mulch.

Then… we just stopped using it. Egad. But, now that I’ve started this blog, and have friends who are so determined to reduce their landfill waste that they’ve started wormeries  how could I not at least revisit my compost bin? I had to reflect to find out what was holding me back (habits fascinate me, btw). Maybe some of these things apply to you:

  • The counter-top ceramic bin that was the waypoint for items going to the compost bin stunk to high-heaven and was disgusting to clean.
  • The counter-top ceramic bin’s lack of transparency meant we just jammed it full of stuff and as long as we could cram the lid closed we didn’t think about it, so the contents started to decompose.
  • Even when the counter-top bin got too full to cram the lid on, we were too lazy to empty it (plus it stank) so organic matter started going into the garbage (just being honest here!).
  • I like the idea of gardening but I’m not really a gardener, so we don’t have any real reason to compost other than reducing our landfill garbage.
  • We never benefited financially from reducing our garbage when we were composting before.
  • What did it matter anyway if my organic matter decomposed in my backyard or in a landfill – wasn’t CO2 and methane produced anyway? (Methane is a greenhouse gas that is 72% more powerful than carbon dioxide.)

Ok, so now I had a list of negative motivators, I could change them to get the result I wanted: reducing my landfill garbage by composting.

  • Clearly, I needed to do something about the counter-top ceramic bin. This might sound ugly, but I just started using plastic bags from the grocery store  and will soon replace them with COMPOSTABLE bags made from corn. Yay! Bags don’t have lids, so no decomposing, no stink, no clean up – one problem solved.
  • Ok, I’ll probably never be much of a gardener but while I was doing some research for this post, I found out why my compost never got hot or turned into great mulch – I needed to turn it. Oops. In fact, the reason compost piles don’t produce as much methane as landfills is because of watering and turning.  Turning prevents anaerobic decomposition.
  • Since we started composting again, we’ve only been filling our garbage can up every other week, so I called our local BI Disposal and asked if I put out a smaller can would we get charged less? – yes, $7/wk less. $364/yr – WooHoo! Running out to buy a mini can now!

Now, I have my positive motivators in place. I’m composting, saving money, sending a little less methane out into the atmosphere. If you’re feeling late to the party, don’t worry, there are plenty of DIY compost bin tutorials online. Or, if you’re an apartment dweller, consider a wormery – how bad could it be?

Follow up: Sustainable Baby Steps has a good list of what can and cannot be put in a compost bin.

Posted in At Home, Food, My CO2 Footprint, Recycling, Saving Money | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

“Just one word. Plastics.”

Posted on January 24, 2013 by Jane Lindley

Do you remember how smart that sounded in The Graduate? Plastic. It was new and exciting.  Sexy even. And, now look at us, just 46 years later we’re drowning in it. Literally.

Bag It - the movie

Jeb from the movie Bag It!

Plastic is very hard to avoid. Just remember every time you accept a plastic bag, container or product, you are creating demand for another one to be produced, shipped, sold, and in many cases thrown out within in minutes of its use. As the movie Bag It eloquently puts it: “Just because plastic is disposable doesn’t mean it just goes away. After all where is away?”

Before you go into a depression spiral about all of the shorebirds, marine mammals, fish and the like dying from eating and being trapped in plastic,  let’s quickly look at some steps we can take to alleviate the situation in one area of our lives: grocery shopping.

Many cities are taking action to reduce plastics. Concord, MA  has banned single-serving plastic water bottles, and even our City of Bainbridge Island recently banned plastic bags (ordinance 2012-06). Now, single-use plastic carry out bags are prohibited. This includes all plastic bags less than 2.25 milimeters thick provided at check out or point of sale. But, that doesn’t really end the plastic issue, does it? There are still a ton of plastic bags available in grocery stores for fruit and vegetables.

Good news is when you cut back on plastic, or any form of packaging, you’re often eating healthier, plus, saving money as well as the environment. Here are some quick tips:

  • Reduce your meat consumption. Eat a vegetarian meal a couple times a week (or better yet, go vegan!). Watch Forks Over Knives if you’re on the fence.
  • Put fruit and veggies loose in your cart or bring more recyclable bags with you. Lightweight stuff sacks are good for this. If you’re not a camper (you probably don’t live in the NW) you can purchase reusable mesh produce bags.
  • Avoid ready-made solutions. I know it’s more time consuming to prepare food from scratch but its better for you. If you’re stuck on what to make, check out FoodGawker, PunchFork or Feast of Joy.

Ideas to Reduce Plastic/Stuff/Trash
Trash Backwards is a new web application (still in beta, but usable), which allows you to enter the type of trash you have then see a list of ways to reuse and/or get rid of it responsibly.

For instance, I typed wine corks in the Name Your Trash field and clicked Reuse it and saw ideas for cork stamps, key floats and cork birdhouses – great for the Do-It-Yourself-er, crafty set. Then I saw listings for recycling (Whole Foods takes corks – good to know).

If you’re local, Sustainable Bainbridge has put together a list of places to recycle just about everything from clothing to yard waste.

Another idea is just to own less, share more. I know, not an entirely American idea, but in a small community, does everyone need their own lawn mower, for instance? Sharing can seem too time consuming to bother with but here’s an idea that can be easily reproduced in other communities: a lending website. To see an example, check out IsLenders Library: “Helping Bainbridge Island Neighbors Share Their Stuff.”

Carbon Emissions to Create a Plastic Bag
In case you were curious, plastic bags generate about 3-50grams of carbon emissions per bag to produce. Paper bags are even worse (12-80 grams of carbon emission). So, bring your bags to the store including: drug store, clothing store….

Posted in Food, Green Ideas, My CO2 Footprint, Recycling, Saving Money, Shopping | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 11 Comments

Do the Slow Thing

Posted on January 16, 2013 by Jane Lindley

Do the slow carbon thingI’m constantly looking for ways to simplify my carbon reduction so I don’t have to think about it so much. To that end, one of my favorite blogs/sites is Do the Green Thing. It identifies seven things everyone can do to live a greener life:

  • Walking (I’d include biking too)
  • Staying Grounded (not flying)
  • All-consuming (use up what you buy)
  • Easy on the Meat (some people would say go vegan, if possible)
  • Human Heat (add clothes, other humans rather than turning up the thermostat)
  • Plug Out (unplug electronics and appliances that are not in use as electricity still dribbles out if they’re plugged in – who knew?)
  • Stick With What You’ve Got (this is hard for fashionable people, or say, someone who needs to have the latest technology due to their job, but for those of us who dislike shopping it’s easy).

Let’s look at just the first bullet point, walking. That seems simple enough, right? Just the other day I used walking as a method for getting from point A to B and was pleasantly surprised. I had a 9 am meeting last Saturday and was planning on biking but when I woke up it was bitter cold, so rather than turn into a popsicle, I decided to walk.

It was a crisp morning and the sun was slowly turning the frost on the grass and trees into diamonds. Walking, even more than biking put me in touch with my surroundings. I wouldn’t have noticed the bald eagle flying overhead or the light on the Cascade Mountains if I biked (as my vision would have been blurred by streaming tears due to the cold).

It does seem to take more time. Being low-carbon. I think that needs to be recognized. I had to have the time to walk. It meant getting up a little earlier than if I was planning to drive, which would have taken 5 minutes. It took 35 minutes to leisurely walk a mile, although biking would have just taken about 8 minutes.

Being forced to slow down a bit — it might not be a bad thing. I mean there is a whole slow food movement, right? Spending time cooking, enjoying friends a family, eating nutritious food is nothing but goodness. Maybe the next big thing is a slow-carbon movement.

Follow Up
Looks like Green Steve and I are thinking along the same lines. He has a post about walk that illustrates how much you can reduce your carbon footprint by walking instead of taking your car.

Posted in At Home, Food, My CO2 Footprint, Shopping, Travel | Tagged , , | Comments Off on Do the Slow Thing

Hot Tub vs. Bath Tub

Posted on January 13, 2013 by Jane Lindley

bath tubOk, I was pretty sure I knew the answer to this question before I started to do any research: which consumed more energy: running the hot tub full bore all winter or taking baths? But, I had to do the research anyway (see The MATH! below).

Ultimately, I’d just like to live life with a sense of which options are more environmentally friendly. Some things are obvious such as hanging laundry to dry versus throwing everything into a clothes drier. Along those lines, I found a cheat sheet on Sopris Foundation’s website, which gives some guidelines for home energy use, travel and food. Its handy, but I think if you have a private jet or heli-ski or a regular basis, which are listed as examples of large carbon footprint activities, you’ve either snubbed your nose at the environment or don’t keep up with current events.

Yesterday, at a Sustainable Bainbridge board retreat, Dana mentioned that she measures/monitors her CO2 footprint by keeping track of three main contributors: kwh of electricity used in her home, miles driven, and air travel.  Brilliant.

In the meantime, I still wanted to get into the weeds and see if I could figure out the environmental impact my hot tub habit was having. We use our hot tub a lot during our chilly NW winters so maybe maintaining a body of hot water at a constant temperature takes less energy than drawing a bath and heating water from 50 to 104 degrees each time we need to warm up. If we run the same number of baths as we use the hot tub, is it a wash?

The MATH!
If you’re not a math person, you may want to skip ahead to the alternative hot tub video below. First some basic info:

  • One gallon of water weighs 8.34lb
  • One BTU (British Thermal Unit) is required to raise the temperature one degree Fahrenheit
  • One KWH = 3413 BTU

Bath tub:
Increase temperature from 50 degrees to 104 (54 degree increase).

54 degree increase x 8.34  (gallon of water in pounds) takes 450.36 BTU
One kwh = 3413 British Thermal Unit
450.36 BTU required / 3413 BTU per kwh = .313 kwh per gallon from 50 deg to 104 deg

.313 x 25gallons = 3.29 kwh to heat 25 gallons to 104 degrees per use.

So, the bath uses 3.29 kwh per use for half-bath of 25 gallons (yes, I have a big bath tub) heated to 104 degrees at $.1035 per kwh = $.34 cents per use. If I took as many baths as I do dunks in the hot tub (average 2 day) = $.68 and 6.58 kwh

Hot tub:
Let’s assume the heat element can recover 4 degrees per hour. Let’s also assume the tub loses 2 degrees per hour in 30 degree weather the heater will have to run 30 minutes for every hour of heat loss.

So, that’s 48 degrees that the hot tub needs to make up to keep at a constant 104 degrees 24/7 – 48 x 8.34 = 400.32 btu required x 3413 BTU per kwh = .117 kwh per gallon or 52.78 kwh/24hr at $.1035 per kwh = $5.46/day in the coldest winter days to maybe half of that on warmer days $2.73. If we figure two tubs a day that’s 26.39-13.2kwh per use.

I thought it would be closer. I suppose if I averaged five hot tubs a day, kept the hot tub at a lower temperature or if I filled the bath tub up to my chin then the two might be more of a wash. Hmmm! Other than putting on another sweater, I suppose the most carbon-neutral thing to do would be some burpees to warm up.

compose_hot_tub

Compost Hot Tub

Alternative Hot Tub
Compost-heated bath thanks to Little Eco Footprints blog. What a stitch. Love those Australians – so creative: http://vimeo.com/36538338

We need to keep an eye on those Australians anyway because they HAVE to solve water and energy problems right NOW. They are foreshadowing what the rest of the world will need to do in the future, mainly, collect rainwater and use it for flushing toilets, cleaning cars, watering gardens – it’s crazy that we use potable water to flush toilets. If you’re not aware of the scorching heat and raging fires (adding harmful greenhouse gasses into our atmosphere) in Australia, Bill McKibben of 350.org has been following them pretty closely on Twitter.

Posted in At Home, Conservation, Green Ideas, My CO2 Footprint | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Electronic Media Hell and other Recycling Stories

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Jane Lindley
media_named

An archeologist dig of electronic media spanning decades. It’s practically museum worthy.

“You’re not throwing out your 2001 files,” my husband asked, his voice dripping with sarcasm, as he helped me carry plastic bins down the attic stairs. Yes, yes, I am – finally!

Besides throwing heaps of paper into the recycle bin, I tossed all those old backup files on SyQuest (yup, I’ve had files for that long!), Jaz, Zip – you name it – of client work over the last ten years into a bin (photo left). When it was full it weighed over 70lbs.

My husband helped me haul it to the car (he’s so handy to have around) so I could drive it to Total Reclaim in Seattle.  I had called before to make sure they took all my different media. They did they take media players? Yes. All the cables? Yes. Old routers? Yes. I was starting to love these guys. Ink cartridges? No. Ok, they’d have to get sent to Green Disk.

Then I asked them about pricing. Twenty five cents a pound for new media (CDs/DVDs) two dollars for old media (SyQuest, Zip etc.); plus two dollars a pound for data destruction. So, I was looking at possibly a couple hundred dollars to dispose of my e-media trash and I was good with that.

But, then I started thinking about the ferry ride over to Seattle, which can be time consuming…so I was on the fence. Should I send my electronic pile to GreenDisk, which offers a ship by mail service – so convenient but more expensive, or to Total Reclaim? As luck would have it I had to run into Seattle this morning so Total Reclaim it was – and a good thing it was too.

After driving into South Seattle, the truck- and train track-rich area of town, I squeezed my car between a couple 18-wheelers to the back of Total Reclaim, parked and walked up to their customer service door. An affable guy helped me lug my stuff from the car and dumped it in a bin as I watched forklifts stacked with hard drives and computers maneuver around the warehouse. “What do I owe you?” I asked. “Nothing. You didn’t have that much,” he said with a smile. FREE disposal – WooHoo! Looking around the warehouse that was filled floor to ceiling with racks of discarded electronics, I guess in his view it wasn’t much stuff. Made my day though.

You Know What’s Almost as Bad as Electronics? Catalogs!

CarbonRally

CarbonRally’s interactive map allows you to see the carbon savings of other people/teams around the world who are doing each challenge.

It’s one thing to purchase stuff, but, it’s a whole other thing to get unsolicited stuff, right?

If you’re feeling a little overwhelmed about recycling, reusing and reducing, CarbonRally  maybe just the ticket. They have challenges that anyone can sign up for, such as their Kick the Catalogs challenge.  It’s a more social approach to going green, so you won’t feel so all alone.

CarbonRally says the easiest way to reduce catalogs is to first collect them, then go to CatalogChoice  and enter in the name and customer number from the mailing label. It’s time-consuming, but I wrote a postcard to each catalog a few years ago and it gave me relief from unsolicited catalogs for about a year. Yes, you’ll need to do this every few years.

Now, Time to Kick Back with a Good Read
While I was cleaning out my files I ran across some old friends, clients I had worked with when I had a web development company, Super Web Group. I can highly recommend:

ink cartridges for recycleFollow Up
After taking the majority of my electronic trash to Total Reclaim I still had some CD/DVDs to go through and two ziplock bags of ink cartridges waiting for disposal. Ink cartridges are the worst because most store/companies will only take the ink cartridges for the printers they carry which means sorting them into little piles and making trips to each store to recycle them. Thankfully, GreenDisk takes all types of ink cartridges along with electronic media, so I tried out their “you pack it” service where you use your own box versus having them send you one of theirs.

It’s not cheap, and I found the “you pack it” the same price as having them send me one of their mailable technotrashcans. I think it was a tad greener to reuse a cardboard box I had versus having something shipped to me then driving to FedX, but the cost of the service and shipping is about the same: $42/per 35lbs of media trash.

Posted in At Work, My CO2 Footprint, Recycling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Books are my Weakness

Posted on January 3, 2013 by Jane Lindley
Home library

Few things I like more than a built-in bookcase with space for more books. Lolita is a purebred rescue dog – sort of like having a secondhand dog – surely a smaller carbon footprint than a brandy-new dog.

I don’t mean to turn this blog into some kind of a confessional, or anything, and I do want to guard against over-sharing — that’s just embarrassing, However, I need to admit one little thing…for some reason my subconscious has done some quick bargaining and I’ve been under the false impression that books are exempt from my low-carbon calculations.

This occurred to me when, after a couple friends recommended some books, I sprinted to the local bookstore without a thought to buying used books or even going to the library. (However, nothing says the local library is automatically a carbon-neutral solution either as buildings can use more energy than cars and trucks.)

Luckily, the cashier at Eagle Harbor Books saved me from myself and let me know I could get a used copy of one of the books downstairs at their used book annex. I had no idea Eagle Harbor Books had a used bookstore.  The used book was half the price and looked exactly the same! I’m going straight to the used bookstore from now on when the urge to buy a book or two hits me. Remember, buying books online is not a panacea either. Think of all of that electricity (I trust that we don’t need to step through that from servers to your e-reader).

Obviously, our habits define us and are hard to change. In fact, we might not even be aware they exist.

So, looking forward to the changes I can make in the New Year, one option is buying used books, or better, borrowing from friends, while print sales dwindle and independent bookstores teeter on the brink of extinction. Here are a few more:

Possible 2013 Resolutions

  • Buy nothing new (which I’d like to try but I’m instantly reminded that all of my computers are so old that I can’t even upgrade to the latest browser and suffer through constant upgrade prompts. I’m willing to use old computers for another year, I think. Exemptions from buying used would be: underwear and any sweaty gym togs.)
  • Stop using or even sell the car (Ok, we’re too rural for this, plus, hard to transport two 70lb dogs on a bike, so that option is out. But, I’ll definitely look into biking more.)
  • Downsize living space (I would love to do this in the future. We had a small home but my hubby recently built a 1,000 sq ft addition. He’s a builder. And, naturally, since he was building, I asked for a built-in bookcase, see photo. Clearly, civilization is doomed!)
  • Stop flying (that if fine by me but it tends to increase my driving).
  • Evaluate each aspect of my life to see where I can reduce my carbon footprint and blog about it – best resolution so far!
Posted in At Home, My CO2 Footprint, Recycling, Saving Money, Shopping | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Books are my Weakness

Need a New Year’s Resolution or Two? Carbon Calculators to the Rescue!

Posted on December 29, 2012 by Jane Lindley

CF_summaryI tried four carbon footprint calculators and even though they used varying methodologies the basic message was: while I’m not as swash-buckling as most extreme users of our natural resources, I have a long, long way to go to get down to 2 metric tons or less of CO2 emissions a year (yes, that’s the per-person goal to reduce the upward spiral of CO2 in our atmosphere). To get there I’m going to have to make some potentially radical changes in my life.

These are the calculators I tried:

•    The Nature Conservancy
•    U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
•    CoolClimate Network
•    CarbonFootprint

Let’s look over the edge of the cliff and take a gander at Carbonfootprint.com’s assessment:

•    House: 2.4 tonnes. Ok, so I’m just out of the gate and I’m already over my limit. The calculator looked at electricity, natural gas, heating oil, coal, LPG, propane, wooden pellets. We use electricity and propane – and apparently just a little too much of it!
•    Flights: 1.32 tonnes. I only took one flight this year, normally, for work and pleasure I’d fly from coast to coast 5-6 times a year. So, this year was better than the 7.92 tonnes of the previous three years. If I wasn’t going to fly my options are to drive (far from carbon neutral), move closer to my family on the East Coast and bid my West Coast friends good bye with a promise to video conference occasionally, or stay on the West Coast and not travel to see family/friends on the East Coast. Hmmm! There must be some other options as well.
•    Car: 5.86 tonnes. I don’t commute to work (haven’t in 20 years of working for myself and telecommuting for other companies) so you would think my car use would be puny, and it was in previous years, but this year, we used the car to drive across country. See a pattern? The message I’m getting is that I can’t have a bi-coastal life and be low carbon too. That’s a little sad. So, to reduce car use I could eschew family/friends on the East Coast (see Flights above), buy a house that has a few fenced in, preferably treed, acres for the dogs to run so we don’t have to drive them somewhere every day, which we do; and bike everywhere else. Right now, I’m waiting for a knee injury to heal before I take to my bike, so staying physically fit needs to be added to the low-carbon regimen as well.
•    Motorbike: 0 tonnes. Woohoo! No motorcycles here.
•    Bus & Rail: .01 tonnes. I rarely need to take a bus or train.
•    Secondary: 4.43 tonnes. This section looked at food preferences, fashion, packaging, furniture, recycling, recreation, car manufacture, finance and other services. To come out carbon neutral my answers would have had to have been:

o    I’m a vegan
o    I grow my own food or buy organic
o    I only buy food in season
o    I only buy second-hand clothes
o    I don’t buy anything with packaging – that’s a neat trick!!
o    I only buy second-hand furniture and appliances
o    Everything I use gets recycled or composed
o    I only do zero-carbon recreational activities (e.g., walking, cycling)
o    I don’t own a car (easier to do in a town or city, of course)
o    I don’t even have a bank account (not sure I can go here, but interesting they thought this was a large enough source of carbon to be mentioned).

EPA’s calculator stressed these lifestyle changes:
•    Turn down household’s heating thermostat on winter nights (we do that by 13 degrees). Chris Goodall’s book recommends keeping the thermostat at 65 degrees during the day – Brrr! 68 degrees has us in sweaters.
•    Turn up household’s air conditioner thermostat in the summer
•    Enable power management features on your computer and monitor
•    Wash your clothes in cold water instead of hot (I was washing in warm water, but now I’ve switched to cold).
•    Use a clothesline or drying rack for 50% of your laundry instead of your dryer (done!)
•    Substitute your household’s current electricity use with Green Power.
•    Replace 60-watt incandescent light bulbs with 13-watt Energy Star lights
•    Replace old refrigerator with Energy Star model
•    Replace single-pane windows with Energy Star windows.

nature_conserve_CF_summ

Nature Conservancy’s carbon calculator. Ability to buy carbon offsets at end of calculator.

Nice thing is that EPA’s site shows you what your dollar and CO2 savings would be for any of the changes noted above.

Nature Conservancy offers to relieve us of our carbon-guilt by giving us an opportunity to buy carbon offsets at the end of the calculator.

Coolclimate calculator lists actions to take and their yearly CO2 reduction and money savings. Actions to take include:

•    Diet change. Yup, you guessed it. Less meat and dairy.
•    Upgrading vehicle efficiency
•    Telecommuting to work.
•    Carpooling to work
•    Riding your bike
•    Taking public transportation
•    Line-drying clothes
•    Adjust thermostat summer and winter
•    Switch to CFL light bulbs
•    Reduce air travel
•    Buy an Energy Star fridge (there it is again – Energy Star)
•    Offset shopping (or buy used!)
•    Purchase green electricity
•    Offset housing (if there’s nothing to be done about electricity and heating/cooling use)
•    Offset transportation
•    Go Organic

The items that are listed above as having the biggest reduction in carbon emissions are: change diet (1.38 metric tons saved), upgrade vehicle efficiency (2.06 metric tons saved), and purchasing green electricity (8.2 metric tons saved).

Although each calculator stressed different ways to reduce our carbon footprint, there was a lot of overlap: transportation, housing and food being three areas individuals can make substantial changes.

Posted in Alternative Energy, At Home, Food, Green Ideas, My CO2 Footprint, Recycling, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Do Your Things Own You?

Posted on December 27, 2012 by Jane Lindley

Recycling cell phonesFor years I’ve said: “a girl can’t have too many computers or web devs.”

This was mostly in reference to the fact that for the past fifteen years or so I’ve been cocooned in an electromagnetic field from at least three computers, a router, cell phone and several printers. I still feel strongly that every modern girl needs a trusted web developer at her disposal. However, I’ve been eyeballing my computers, servers, and laptops lately and feeling that I could get rid of most of them and their accessory friends.

If I could, I would just pitch them all in the trash, but I can’t pollute the world like that, so, like so many other people, I’ve let my tech gear pile up. And, because I’ve been in the tech industry for so long, I have huge plastic tubs of hard drives (Syquest, Jazz, Flash), CDs, floppies, servers, and computers – it’s bad. Plus, I was a commercial photographer before that so I have cameras to get rid of too.

Time for a post to force myself to look up the answers where and how items can be recycled or reused.

  • Sell. Thank fortune for Craigslist.org (a great recycler). It takes time to photo, post and respond to emails, but I made $600 on my old studio lights…now time for those old film cameras.
  • Reuse/Repurpose. Check out an alpha-test site Trash Backwards.  Just type in the item you want to get reuse and it’ll list options for repurposing it. For instance, to reuse CDs you’ll find ideas for jewelry, yarn weaving, garden decoys, mobiles, and coasters.
  • Recycle. If you’re near Seattle, try Total Reclaim (that’s where I think I’m going to take my tubs of electronics) or for disks and some other tech products try Green Disk. 
And, keep an eye out for stores that take printer cartridges or other recyclables. A local wine store, Eleven Winery  is recycling cell phones for free on Bainbridge Island. Who would have thunk? The company they work with refurbishes them so they can be reused (be sure to remove any SIM cards). I got rid of three cell phones and related chargers. Yay!
  • Donate. Goodwill takes clothes, of course, but check with your local branch to see if they’ll take any electronics. The Seattle branch even takes old digital cameras, so I got rid of two Sony Maciva cameras.

I find that clutter can suck the oxygen out of my life, and caring for stuff slows me down. I’d rather visit with friends, go biking or just about anything other than dust or organize stuff. I don’t know about you, but my stuff is very demanding.

Looking to Do Even More Downsizing?

It’s one thing to get rid of clutter in one corner of your house, but maybe you’re a closet Minimalist and don’t know it. Are you itching to get out from under a mortgage, high-pressure job, or just have more time to follow your bliss?  A smaller, less cluttered abode might be the answer.

When I heard about The Minimalists from my swim pal, Ann, at a party recently, I felt as though they might be low-carbon girl’s long-lost cousins. Two guys who quit their six-figure corporate jobs (I did that too), spent a little time without goals
(I did that too – and now I’m questioning my ever-present lists – being goal-driven is a hard gig to give up!), and now live in smaller quarters with less stuff and love it (I dream of this too, but, am just attacking my office at this point). Daily Sightline did a great piece on the variety of small living options as well as their pros and cons.

If you’re in the Seattle area The Minimalists are going to be chatting it up in person on Thursday 10 January 2013 at 7:30 PM at the Town Hall Seattle (Downstairs) 1119 8th Ave. Seattle, WA 98101. You can still RSVP on their tour page.

Posted in Recycling | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , | Comments Off on Do Your Things Own You?

About that Cup o’ Joe…

Posted on December 22, 2012 by Jane Lindley

Reusable coffee cup“This will keep your coffee warm for an entire ferry ride,” I remember the salesgirl saying at Pegasus when I bought my first reusable commuter mug, 20 years ago. Finally! I was a true Seattlite, I drank coffee, cared about the environment and carried a used coffee cup around with me as proof. Not something you’d see in Boston, I remember thinking with pride.

After years of eschewing coffee house coffee due to the cost (my habit was costing about $1,000/yr.) I’ve started to go out again with friends for the occasional cup o’ Joe. And, I’ve noticed an unsettling change.

Twice now in the last month, I’ve ordered a tea or coffee “for here” and assumed that it would be served in a porcelain cup. Not so. As I turned back to my companion to continue our conversation, I saw, out of the corner of my eye, that my beverage was being poured into a paper cup! What?! Before I could protest, the damage was done. Cup used.

At Bainbridge Bakers, there is a huge garbage can indoors (so these are drinks that were consumed on the premises) filled to the brim with paper cups. A sure sign that I must be vigilant, go on the defensive, and bring my cup with me.

What if Everybody Did?

Chris Jordan plastic cups Running the Numbers

Screen capture from Chris Jordan’s TED talk. One million plastic cups used in 6hrs on airplanes.

Most Seattlites know of Chris Jordan, the photographer/artist/activist, if you don’t, it’s worth the two minutes to look at just the first part of his 2008 TED talk about his Running the Numbers project.  He uses images to show, among other things, how much Americans waste in a day, month, and year.  Or, take a quick look at his talk on plastics in the ocean. (Not to freak you out or anything, but 2.4 million pieces of plastic enter the ocean every hour.)

The biggest message regarding waste is to be aware of the “behaviors we engage in unconsciously.”

Americans use over 4 million plastic cups a day on airplanes and 40 million paper cups a day for hot beverages (2008) – equal in height to a 42-story building. Wow.  Time to tote a reusable beverage container or two around with you, eh?

All of this reminds me of a childhood book If Everybody Did. Jo Ann Stover was a family friend and illustrated the book, which cajoled children to take responsibility for their actions, like turning off the tap instead of letting it drip. The consequences of not doing the right thing were magnified into an extreme illustration such as a house filled with water and everyone floating in it.

Beyond the Cup
Remember my friend Joy? Well, she had a restaurant experience that brought up a number of questions for those of us who would like to enjoy life but produce less garbage. (Waste, large carbon footprint’s evil twin.)

First, her main question: Why is it so hard to make the right choices?

Joy’s experience, from her computer to my blog:

“Most of the time I get the spring rolls to go and they put them in a plastic take-out box. Which I hate. But because the rice paper is sticky, it has to be in a box like that; they’d stick to a cardboard box. Today, I met a friend there for lunch and was going to eat in the cafe for the first time. I was so excited to not use that plastic take-out box! I asked for it “to stay” and they put my two enormous spring rolls on a cool old ceramic plate.

And alongside, the peanut sauce in a plastic cup. The hot sauce in a plastic cup. And a plastic spoon. And a plastic cup for water.

I was heartbroken, and even more so when it came time to leave and I still had half a roll to take with me. I realized I was going to have to get some kind of something to carry it out in. I couldn’t just pick up my roll and walk down the street with it. Can you imagine carrying half a sandwich down the street with you? Couldn’t wrap it in a napkin because of the sticky problem.

* sigh *

So I went to the counter and asked for a piece of plastic wrap so I could wrap my roll in it.

All of this is probably better than using that dumb plastic take-out box, but in the end did my choice really make a difference? I mean, other than by making my friend laugh at me?

I think that no matter how good our intentions are, if our culture isn’t on the same page, we’re going to hit the wall over and over again.”

See. This is why I think Seattle’s changed. 20 years ago no one would have laughed at Joy’s attempts to do the most sustainable thing possible.

I think people who would like to see a waste and plastic/cup/takeout container reduction need to go on the defensive. Only if the demand is diminished will production and use of takeout products diminish. We unwittingly create demand each time we accept a paper cup, takeout container, etc.

My reply to Joy’s question and how a person might go on the defensive:

1) Bring a reusable takeout container.
2) As we learned at Pegasus (and I had to learn the lesson a second time at BI Bakers!) we can’t assume anything and need to ask if they use porcelain, or any plastic.
3) Bring drink cups, utensils just in case.
4) Bring reusable plastic bags or something for used cutlery.

All of this means we’ll need to go shopping for a much bigger handbag – at a thrift store, naturally.

Ugh! It does feel like pushing a big rock up a hill. I agree. Until society catches up, one risks looking like a freak and holding up the line (two things that don’t bother me much, but the extra-large handbag might be the straw…).

Speaking of straws, I have a friend in NC that travels around with a silver straw (she likes straws) and eschews plastic straws. So there are a few of us out there cutting down on waste where we can in our own fabulous way.

Posted in At Work, Food, Green Ideas, Recycling, Travel | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

CO2 Baseline

Posted on December 19, 2012 by Jane Lindley

The idea that a person should be concerned about the parts per million of CO2 in our atmosphere entered my consciousness four years ago when I read an article about NASA’s James Hansen with the unsavory message that our CO2 was ALREADY beyond safe limits. I figured a rocket scientist would know these things, so I started to worry about CO2 ppm but didn’t know what to do.

I’m pretty sure I read about it in the NYTimes or New Yorker and clipped the article for my Thoughts file, but the link above was one of the online versions I found, see who it’s written by? Bill McKibben! Mr. 350.org himself. And, it looks like, from his byline, that this was before he formed 350.org.

When the article was written, our atmospheric CO2 was 383 ppm. James Hansen’s position was that we need to get our CO2 levels back down to 350 ppm (it’s now at 392.92), kinda heading in the wrong direction.

What is a Human’s Baseline Annual CO2 Emission?
All of this got me thinking, if we’re oxygen breathers, CO2 emitters, what’s the CO2 cost of a human before we do anything at all (like jump in a car, run to the store and buy meat and dairy)? No one really wants to ask that question, right?

One source puts the number between 328.5 kg  and 206.23 kg a year. Most CO2 measurements are in tonnes, not the American ton. What’s the difference you may be asking (and why are we the last ones to use the metric system)? A ton is measurement used exclusively in the US and it is equal to 2,000 lbs. A tonne is equal to 1,000 kg. Here’s where my brain starts to hurt.

Just so you can check my math when I convert the numbers above:

  • there are .45359237 kilograms in a pound
  • 2,000 pounds are equal to 907.18474 kg
  • 1,000 kilograms are equal to 2,204.623 lbs.

We emit  between .33 and .21 tonnes a year or .36 and .23 tons a year. Clearly, just being human isn’t that big of a deal, it’s gotta be burning fossil fuels (like they’ve been saying) that is causing the majority of the problem. Whew!

Does all this leave you wanting a visual?

Dan Kowalski, RollingbayWorks

Dan Kowalski’s image from Deep Presence show 2011. Ancient Ice.

My buddy Dan, from RollingbayWorks (arresting images of melting glaciers and nature – an example to the left) provided me with a great link this morning to Carbon Visuals.

One metric ton of gas is about the size of a house. Carbon Visuals has visuals for NYC real-time carbon emissions (nearly 2 tons every second!), a US specific set of visuals of typical CO2 emissions per US household, gallon of gas, etc.– worth a quick look.

Glaciers have become icons of climate change. Facts and figures move policy. Can beauty and presence move us?
— Dan Kowalski

 

Posted in At Home, Conservation, My CO2 Footprint | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments