One Small Step

I'm sure by now that everyone has seen some variant on the commercials that tell us to change one small item in our daily lives and we'll change the world. (If you haven't, you can check some out on YouTube here and here. ) I definitely believe that enough people making changes in their lives can have a profound impact on our resource usage. However, given the size of corporations, it makes sense that they can have an even greater immediate impact. Think about it, the building I work in is probably at least 80x larger than my house (with way more than 80x the computers!). I've switched to using a laptop at home, and it uses about 1/10th of the power of my old desktop. If the 3000 employees that work in the same building as me also switch to laptops that's a huge difference in energy consumption! If I raise my A/C by a degree, that has an impact. If my workplace raises the A/C by a degree, that's a much larger impact.

Now, corporations are not generally motivated by warm fuzzy feelings for the environment, with a few exceptions. There has to be a business reason to make changes to standard operating procedures, and it all boils down to money. The more money a business can make (or save), the more likely they are to implement a green change. And even with cost savings, it can take a while to change the status quo. Which is why I was surprised by something that happened while I was away at school. I've been back at work for two weeks now. Before I left, every two weeks a mail cart would come by and place a pay stub in the mail slot of all those 3000 employees. Most people would look at it and either shred it, or take it home to be disposed of later. I mean, who really wants to end up with 20 years worth of pay stubs hanging around? I admit that I was anticipating the pay stub cart when I received something even BETTER. An email pay stub! I'm not sure exactly when they made this change, but I'm happy to know that there is no more paper being used for pay stubs. Unless of course you're one of those people who prints out your emails to file them. If you are...stop now! Save the files on your computer and make regular backups, but stop printing emails!

Them having made this change makes me think I should look into those little flyers some of my bills send me, the ones that say I can receive my bills online and never get mail from them again. After all, if a corporation can go paperless (or more paperless), I ought to be able to make strides in that direction as well!

PS: As of yesterday, I'm 20% done my 1000 empties challenge!

B.Y.O.T. (takeout)

I like to go out for dinner every now and again, and since we were out hiking yesterday, it seemed like a good day to go out. Also, we were at a B&B so it was either go out for dinner or eat hiking food in our room - go out for dinner was the much better choice. When we go out for dinner, it's highly likely that there will be leftovers...and there should be with the portion sizes given out by most restaurants! East Side Mario's was having a special where you could buy any pizza for $9.99 with the purchase of a beverage. Since both small and regular size pizzas were in the deal, I picked up the regular vegetarian (really, really good if you happen to be going). Now, I found the nutrition information online, and my pizza would have had 1080 calories. According to this site, I need to consume 2095 calories a day to maintain my weight (really, I should look at maybe dropping the 5 lbs I gained while vacationing!). Since I do eat two other meals in a day, and we snack while hiking, eating 1080 calories for dinner is overkill...not to mention I would have been way too full to enjoy the evening.

So...did I get some lovely styrofoam takeout containers? No! How anti-green would that be? Since I knew I'd be going out for dinner, I brought a couple pieces of reusable plastic containers with me and put the leftovers in them. Added bonus...I didn't have to wait for my takeout containers! For those of you who worry about others putting your food away, this takes care of that as well. And since you're already carrying a trendy cloth bag with you, you can just slip your takeout into your bag. (Ok, maybe my bag isn't that trendy, but yours might be) This was my first time bringing tupperware to a restaurant, but I'll definitely continue. It's easy, convenient, and I'm saving the world by reducing the amount of plastic and styrofoam needed!

Vandalism is NOT Green

Today I was hiking along the Bruce Trail - a fairly green hobby. We were doing 19 km today, so we dropped a car off at one end of the trail, and we all drive back to the beginning of the trail in the other car. That way, once we're finished hiking we can hop in the car we left, pick up the other car, and get on with our evening. Normally this works really well. Today, after a long day of hiking we got back to the car left at the end of the trail; today that was my car. As we neared the end of the trail I spotted my car and got all excited....there's nothing like seeing your car at the end of a long day of hiking...the end is literally in sight! As we switched out of our hiking boots and got ready to drive back to the other car, this is what greeted us on the passenger side.


Yes, as we innocently left our car in the designated parking area, on a busy road, at an intersection with a busy rail trail, someone decided to take a rock and smash it through my front passenger window. Which really sucks to come back to. They opened the glove box, and moved my hair band from a cup holder. That's it - except for the broken window of course. Frankly, I have no idea why they bothered breaking the window...it would have been pretty obvious from looking inside that there was nothing of value. And I do mean nothing...probably the map book was the most expensive thing in the car. However, I'm EXTREMELY grateful that this didn't happen yesterday when my in-laws car was parked there...with all their clothing, and my laptop bag.

So, the only thing I need to replace is one window. In terms of being eco-friendly, obviously it would have been better to keep using my original window. Since that's no longer an option, grr...still kind of mad at the person(s) who broke my window, we're going to go the next most eco-friendly route. Instead of buying a new window, we're checking at the auto wreckers to see if we can pick up a used window and my husband will either install it himself or we'll bring it to the mechanic's. So now, I'm going to continue trying to get ahold of my insurance to see if I'm covered at all, and wait for the police to come see my car for the official report. But I'm still feeling pretty cheerful, and the owner of the B&B we're at has actually just told me that he put some clear plastic up on my car window in case it rains. It's nice dealing with small business owners instead of giant corporations!

One In, One Out - A Month Later

Actually, it's been closer to a month and a half since I decided that for every durable item that comes into my house, another durable should leave. This was partially a way for me to become more conscious of my consumption, and partially a way to keep my house decluttered. When I wrote about my plan here, I admit I was feeling pretty confident, arrogant even, in how it was going to work out. After all, I admire simplicity in the house and like to think that I'm not that much of a consumer....I figured I'd have no problem keeping myself from accumulating. I actually thought that I'd probably only acquire a handful of items (if that), that I'd purge stuff I didn't use anymore, and that I might even end up with a clean and elegant house.

Sigh. I know, those of you who know me personally and have visited my house are probably rolling on the floor with laughter right now. I might admire simplicity and aspire towards it, but here's a picture of my dining room right now. In my defense, we've just returned from a trip and haven't unpacked much yet.

So, you already know the clean and elegant house hasn't happened, but how did I do with accumulation and purging? Well, it was closer than I thought it would be! Somehow there was a great sale on some clothing that I actually needed, I went to a store where I could replace a kitchen scale that had broken the month before, my grandmother gave up a deli-slicer, etc... Oh, and we won the centerpiece at a wedding we attended! All in all, from June 16 to July 24 I picked up 18 more items that will be in permanent residence. However, I also got rid of 21 items. The outgoing items were a combination of old computer equipment (sent to the hazardous waste depot), actual garbage (broken pair of sunglasses), and a bunch of other items that I either sold on craigslist, gave away on freecycle, or donated to a charitable organization.

There were days where I ended up buying items where I'd rack my brain over what could go away. Some of the choices were a lot harder than they should be....like the pair of jeans that I've had for almost three years and have never worn because the don't fit me and are unlikely to ever fit me. That was actually a tough choice to give away. Or the tiny pink satin purse that came with some nail polish and I've had for years...way too small to be useful but as soon as I decided to pitch it, I started thinking "well, maybe if..." I've got to say that I don't miss any of the departed items though, and in a few cases I'm pretty glad they're gone and being put to good use! AND when I was going through my closet I found clothing I'd forgotten about that did fit me, and looked good.

I have to admit that knowing I was keeping track of items in and out did actually make me think more about items I was considering buying. Having to think about what would leave the house acted as a check on impulse buying and made sure that I: a) really wanted whatever it was; and b) had a use for the item.

Will I continue with a One In, One Out policy? I think I will, but I won't track the items quite so closely, instead I'll just have an In column and an Out column with checkmarks. If the In starts getting ahead of the Out, I'll know that that's not the direction I want to go! Though if I really want to end up with a neat and uncluttered house, my sister suggested I might want to adopt a One In, Two Out policy for awhile! I'll probably also need to work on organization. :)

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today was my dad's birthday, so we had the usual kind of party - family & food! How do you make a birthday a little greener? First of all, only buy presents that don't add to un-needed clutter. We all pitched in and got my dad a really nice set of knives. He does a lot of cooking, and so far he's been doing it with some less than optimal knives. With this set, he should be able to stop trying to replace his knives a bit at a time, and he shouldn't ever need another set. Far better than giving him a cool kitchen gadget like the Banana Saver and Banana Slicer.

We wrapped the knives in a reuseable (and reused) gift bag. I didn't get him a card (though my mom did). Part of that is that I'm being green (reduce....he's just going to recycle it a couple days later anyways), part of it is that I'm lazy, and part of it is that I'm saving the money! Honestly, most of it is the fact that he'll just pitch it a couple of days later...I rarely buy cards. I make exceptions only for people that I know really enjoy cards, and for weddings and showers where people use them to keep track of gifts received.

Love cards but still feel a bit guilty about the waste? Do what one of my friends does...her and her husband go out on Valentines and their anniversary and pick out cards for each other. They read them in the store and then leave them on the shelf. Or, get the cards but don't sign them. That way you can cycle them around year to year and only increase your stash when you find cards you absolutely love!

How Low Can You Go?

Today our hydro, water and gas bills all came in the mail. This isn't as depressing as you might think, I like to check out our resource usage and compare against other months, and national averages.

Electricity:
Our average daily use: 11.51 kWh
Average Canadian household: 31.86 kWh
Average United States household: 30.71 kWh
Average European household: 12.79 kWh

As you can see, we're doing fairly well right now compared to the national average (just over 1/3), though I know there are people who do more. I think we've gotten to the point where if we make any more changes, we'll start seeing an impact on our lifestyle. So, why is our daily usage so much lower than the average? We use almost all CFLs in our lights (we have 46 lightbulbs in our house, I counted); we only have a couple that are the cold white light, or that take a few seconds to flicker on so we keep them in low usage areas. Our televisions and DVD players are attached to a power bar, and the power bar is turned off when they're not in use. This eliminates the vampire power still being consumed even when appliances are turned off. Our appliances are all fairly new, and all EnergyStar. And, last but not least, we turn things off when we're not using them! My laptop is fairly energy efficient, but it still uses 30 watts when it's plugged in, by unplugging the laptop when it's not in use I can save about 420 watts, or almost 0.5 kWh per day.

Electricity usage in Europe and the United States
Electricity usage in Canada

Water:
Our average daily use per person: 130 litres
Average Canadian: 329 litres
Average American: 380 litres

Again we're lower than the average, but I'm not honestly sure why. We shower regularly! We do try to make sure that we only run the dishwasher and washing machine with full loads. We do water our lawn, but we avoid overwatering. We have a low flow showerhead and a front load washing machine, but we haven't done anything else to conserve water.

Water usage statistics

Natural Gas:
Our annual usage: 1302 cubic metres
Average Canadian usage: 2700 cubic metres

Since natural gas usage varies widely by the season, I thought it was more useful to look at the annual usage - not too hard to do if you keep all your bills. Again, we're lower than the national average but not as dramatically. I'm sure the fact that we purchased a smaller house helped here, and the programmable thermostat we were given as a housewarming present means we don't heat the house while we're sleeping. It's also been helped along by my husband's insistence that if I'm cold, I should put on a sweater instead of making him miserably hot! :)

Have you ever checked your resource usage? How do you compare?

Another Reason to Reduce

It seems like lately I've been coming across all sorts of reasons to reduce our garbage. First there was the fact that for every dollar spent, half a litre of petroleum is consumed. Now we're starting to see the impact of not collecting garbage on a daily basis for the city of Toronto. For those of you who aren't aware, Toronto's city workers are on strike, and that includes the waste disposal workers. The strike started on June 22 and it didn't take long for tension to mount. It's also not taking long for piles of garbage to show up anywhere and everywhere. Below is a picture by erinleah off of flickr.



Politicians are saying that they won't rush in to end Toronto's garbage strike, so it'll be interesting to see whether Torontonians will save their garbage, use the depots set up around the city, or dump anywhere they won't be caught. I'm sure that new flickr photos will be appearing daily chronicling the city streets. One reason the strike won't be legislated back to work is that Windsor has been dealing with a garbage strike for 11 weeks now. How are they dealing? One Windsor man has found that private disposal facilities are inexpensive and well run.

If my city's garbage collection went on strike, I think the worst impact for me would be the compost, especially in a hot summer! We have two large compost containers, and I'm guessing it would take 6-8 weeks to fill them both (maybe a little longer if I can get some no-waste weeks going for Food Waste Fridays). Our four recycling containers would fill up faster, but we could always use some cardboard boxes for the masses of junk mail and flyers we receive, plus, now that I've given up pop that should remove a lot of cans and cardboard from our recycling. Our one garbage can should last us 6-8 weeks of normal use as well. If I knew I was about to be involved in a long garbage strike, I might look into backyard composting or vermicomposting; other than that I think I could last at least two to three months before I had to find something to do with my garbage/recycling. What impact would a garbage strike have on your lifestyle?

A Dollar Spent

I ran across an interesting piece of information in a book I was reading recently. In a study done by Charles Hall, a professor at Syracuse, he determined that for every dollar spent (American dollar) a half-litre of petroleum is consumed. His study looked at worldwide spending, so it's not just determining the impact of spending in America, or North America. The half-litre of petroleum takes into account the full lifecycle of the product; resources, production, transportation, etc. Obviously not every dollar will have the same impact, the half-litre is averaged out over all types of spending. I'm fairly certain that spending a dollar at your local yard sale, bake sale or Goodwill store doesn't have the same ecological impact as spending a dollar on, say, oil for your car. This study shows how a green lifestyle and a frugal lifestyle are often closely related, and gives us another way of looking at our purchases.

The book Your Money or Your Life asks it's readers to consider purchases in terms of 'life-energy', or how many hours you'd need to work (trade away) to purchase a $400 iPod for example (based on how much you actually clear after all your work expenses are taken into account). Thinking of purchases in terms of hours worked really lets you decide how badly you want/need the item. Now I'll be thinking in terms of petroleum impact as well. Here's a few examples of purchases along with the petroleum impact. For fun, I also included how far I could drive on that many litres of gasoline.

Night at the movies (for 2)
Cost: $40
Environmental Cost: 20 Litres
Trip in my car: 260 km

New 40" television
Cost: $1099.99
Environmental Cost: 550 Litres
Trip in my car: 7150 km Enough to drive from BC to Newfoundland!

Basic cable
Cost: $30/month
Environmental Cost: 15 Litres/month
Trip in my car: 195 km or three trips to my parents per year

Haircut (women's, no colour)
Cost: $35
Environmental Cost: 17.5 Litres
Trip in my car: 227.5 km


Definitely a new way for me to look at purchases, and another good reason to try and reduce!

Giving up Pop

A bit ago I wrote about how I felt that reducing was better than recycling. Looking around my house, there are a few single-use items that shouldn't be part of my lifestyle. Like pop (coke/pepsi). I don't feel too bad about the cans, since I do recycle everything, but reducing would have an even lower eco-footprint. The ecological impact wasn't enough to change my habits on its own. The fact that I noticed I was getting caffeine headaches if I went a day without pop wasn't enough to change my habits. Put the two facts together, and I'm motivated to get pop out of my house. Since a single can seems to have around 10 teaspoons of sugar I'm sure my teeth will thank me for kicking the habit as well.

I've never gotten into drinking tea or coffee but I have had a problem with caffeine addiction through pop before. I know that in three or four days I won't have the headaches anymore, the real problem will be in breaking the actual habit of having a can of pop. Until a few months ago pop was reserved as a treat, but somehow I ended up in the habit of one a day, even if I wasn't really craving a coke. If there's anything sillier than drinking a bunch of empty calories with no nutritional value simply for the sake of a habit.... Since this isn't my first time quitting pop, obviously restricting myself to moderation doesn't work - it sneaks back in slowly. So, from here on out, no more pop at home. I'll still allow some if we're out at a restaurant, but I won't be buying more for home use. At home I plan on replacing pop with water, and some juice. The planet will thank me, my pocketbook will thank me, and my body will thank me!

Reduce, Reuse or Recycle?

There's been a lot of publicity about recycling lately, especially with Tim Horton's announcing recycling of it's coffee cups. I like recycling, I think it's important, but I think it's the LEAST important of the three R's. In order to get to the recycling stage, you've already created the object and now you're using more resources to turn it into some other object to buy again. The disposable coffee cups is a great example of this. On the ecorenovator website, I read "The energy expended to recycle a paper coffee cup is extremely difficult - they are coated with a polyethylene. It takes 4-5 times more energy to collect, transport, reconstruct — i.e. recycle - than to simply make a new one". Recycling the cups is still better than letting them sit in a landfill, but think how much better off we'd be if we reduced the need for the cups (14.4 billion disposable coffee cups are bought each year in America). Yes, there are expenses and resources used up in making a non-disposable travel or china mug, but those mugs are reused countless times before they break for some reason. And each reuse saves the effort of making a disposable cup and the landfill space or cost of recycling.

In my opinion we should reduce as much as we can, reuse as much as possible and only then turn to recycling. Last option of all is the landfill of course. I'd love to try a zero waste challenge like that undertaken by this family in the UK. I really like the idea of voluntary simplicity and decluttering, which also works well with the idea of reducing our personal consumption. I still need to work on it in my own life. My husband is not impressed when I read blog articles that encourage me to declutter like this one or this one. I've figured out why though....I need to stop trying to get rid of his stuff and focus on my own :)

I think my best bet will be to adopt a one-in, one-out strategy for non-consumable/non-gift items. Of course, since I just bought 68 books at a yard sale last weekend.....but they're not staying! Once I've read the ones I'm interested in (they came in a box, I couldn't pick and choose) they'll be posted on freecycle or at a used book store. Today is Day One of my one-in, one-out policy. Let's see how it goes!

Why Didn't I Think of This??

Since I've been posting food waste photos on Fridays, the plastic bags I've been throwing out have really been bothering me. I realize that even if the food wasn't wasted, the bags still would be, but I thinkg the fact that I'm seeing all the bags at one time is what's really making me think about the waste. Since plastic bags are a petroleum product, they're created from non-renewable fossil fuels. I thought there had to be a better use for fossil fuels than carrying my vegetables home from the grocery store and then spending eternity in a landfill. A quick Google search showed some retail solutions where I could buy a reusable mesh/fabric bag for produce. That seemed like a good idea but a little pricey, so I kept searching. This forum was also looking for bags, but some members pointed out they'd be easy to make and all you'd need is some sheer fabric and a drawstring. Now, no one would ever call me an expert seamstress but I was confident I could manage the (max) four straight(ish) lines this would required. :)

I immediately went to the basement to look for a sheer curtain I thought might be down there - which is when I realized I need to clean the basement. Temporarily defeated, I went to the Salvation army the next day (by bike, not car!) and picked up one curtain and two things that might have been related to a curtain.


A few minutes with the sewing machine (alright, more like an hour, I had to read the manual again to figure out how to work the machine) and I have an awesome selection of bags, enough for all my grocery needs. I made three different sizes to suit apples/onions/bakery, peppers/broccoli, and mushroom/beansprouts. I figure three large, six medium and three small will be more than enough for my grocery needs. Here's a picture of the large and small bags in use. The large is holding 10 apples with no sign of strain, and the small is actually holding a couple of peppers...the bags are roomier than I thought they'd be.


No more plastic bags for me, I'm one step closer to being able to go plastic free! And with enough leftover fabric that odds are good some people are getting bags for Christmas.

Another bonus...as I picked to and from the grocery store, I added five more empties to my collection.

Ode to the Library

I returned home from a hiking trip to good news on the answering machine! Four of the books I wanted to read from the library came in and are waiting for me to pick them up. In my opinion, there is no greener building than the public library. Each library serves thousands or tens of thousands of patrons, and each library patron is likely to take out a lot more than just one book. If we all had to buy each book we wanted to read....think of the resources that would have to get used! Not to mention the fact that I'd need to have bought a 10,000 square foot house so that I'd have room to keep all my books.

Frankly, a lot of the books I've read I don't really need to read over and over again. I have a few that I keep around for reference, more that I just really liked and will re-read, and a few more that I couldn't wait for a reserve to come in at the library (I was one of the people at the bookstore at midnight when Harry Potter came out). The library lets me check out a wide variety of books, and if I find some I particularly like, I can start looking for them on bookmooch or at Chapters. Right now, I have eight books out from the library:

1. Cook for a day, eat for a month: frozen assets lite & easy; by Deborah Taylor-Hough
2. The dinner fix: cooking for the rushed; by Sandi Richard
3. Edible garden weeds of Canada; by Adam F. Szczawinski
   
4. Frozen Assets: how to cook for a day and eat for a month; by Taylor-Hough, Deborah
5. Green for life: 200 simple eco-ideas for every day; by Gillian Deacon (coming to me soon through bookmooch!)
   
6. Instant immersion American sign language (a computer program)
   
7. Into the Fire; by Suzanne Brockmann
8. Walden; by Henry David Thoreau

As you can see, I'm going through a cooking phase right now. Mostly I look for cool recipe ideas, but I don't want to actually keep that many cookbooks around with all their recipes (I have no interest in remembering how to make Crab Quesadillas, Crab Rice Chowder, Crab Quiche or any of the other Crab recipes). Most of the time when I want a recipe I just go to allrecipes.com and it's there in a printable format, with a lot of reviews and suggestions for tweaking the recipe.

When I go to pick up my four new books, I may even make my trip a little greener by biking or walking down to the library. At our library you have to check out your books yourself using a self-checkout, and you also have the option of not printing a receipt with your due dates. Since I use the internet to check when my books are due (usually I remember to check before I go overdue), I'll skip printing the receipt as well.

Check out your library - it's been in the reduce (your book buying) and reuse (book-sharing) since long before reduce and reuse became fashionable.