September 19, 2008
Al Gore's Challenge: Repowering America
It's always inspiring when you see someone working on something they're passionate about. I think Al Gore would have made a good president, but I think he makes an even better soldier on the front lines of the climate change crisis. And he's getting stuff done.
Al Gore made a big splash with An Inconvenient Truth, but that was only the beginning. In 2006, he founded the Alliance for Climate Protection, whose mission is to persuade people (Americans especially) through solid science that climate change does exist, is a very serious concern for the future of mankind, and can be addressed, if only we act soon.
Preferably now.
The Alliance is currently running the WE (We can solve it) campaign, an urgent call to bring together the American public to fight against climate change by issuing collective, bipartisan pressure on politicians of every level to solve the climate crisis. The message is clear: regardless of who your party affiliation, if you care about the future of the country and the planet you will leave for your children, then the WE campaign is for you.
Back in July, Al Gore gave a speech challenging the American public. He set an ambitious goal for our country: produce 100% of our electricity needs from zero-carbon-emitting sources (like wind, solar, geothermal, hydro, etc.) and do so within the next decade.
Yeah, it's a tall order but if you listen to Gore's speech, you'll see that he doesn't just talk about the WHAT. Now he's talking about the HOW.
Gore didn't pull many punches when it came to illustrating how the oil and gas industries lobby in Washington tries to control our nation's energy policy. As to why oil and gas industries need to be a product of our past, not our future, he stated that pretty clearly when he said:
"We're borrowing money from China to buy oil from the Persian Gulf to burn it in ways that destroy the planet. Every bit of that's got to change." - Al Gore
This past week, the WE campaign ran a hard-hitting ad about the oil and gas lobby. I think it's safe to say it was pretty effective.
You can find out more about Al Gore's Challenge on the WE website.
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September 17, 2008
Fall Is Coming!
I love fall.
Brisk wind rattling the brightly colored leaves until they spin from the trees and swirl around your feet. Woodsmoke in the air. Halloween.
It's time to batten down the hatches against the cool weather drafts (and critters).
We also play chicken-we try not to turn on the heat until there's a danger that the pipes will freeze. It's sweater time.
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September 11, 2008
Granite State Greenery: AMC Huts Showcase Green Tech
Hello, all!
Just back from a hike through some of the AMC huts along the Appalachian Trail. We headed up the Bridal Path Trail up to Greenleaf hut and then on up a total of 3600 feet to Mount Lafayette (5,260ft) and across the Garfield Ridge Trail to Galehead hut, passing the summit of Mt. Garfield (4,500 ft) along the way.
Had a great time, some serious weather though, like fog, hurricane force winds (80+mph), torrential rain, thunder, lightning and a snow advisory.
The Garfield Ridge Trail was substantially more difficult than I remembered, especially around Mt. Garfield, where it turns from a trail to a rock climbing expedition. It made Agony Ridge below Greenleaf feel like a cakewalk.The weather thankfully cleared for a bit along the way and we had some fantastic views.
We made it to Galehead a bit after dark. The Galehead crew gave us a tour of all the green tech at the hut—composting toilets, kitchen compost, wind power, solar, on-demand hot water for the kitchen, etc.
You can find more pictures of our trip on FLICKR: Greenleaf to Galehead and I'm going to try to do a post with more details on how the huts of the White Mountains make little choices that make big differences to keep their impact on the environment low.
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October 10, 2007
Planet-Friendly Moving: It's The Little Green Things That Count
It's The Little Green Things That Count
Fox Mulder would understand this, and so should you.
These past few weeks have been hectic, but very productive. Still, despite deadlines and getting a really nasty cold and did I mention we moved all our worldly belongings about 3000 miles and then entertained family for a few days while we unpacked, we managed not to lose track of our green living principles, we just adjusted them to fit our needs.
It's so easy to let good habits slide when you're under pressure and outside your normal routine. Especially when you're moving house.
Stuff you'd normally recycle, you chuck. Stuff you'd normally keep in the pantry, you chuck. Stuff that would normally hang out in the back of a closet, you... get the picture.
I thought today I would share a couple of little random tidbits that helped keep our cross-country move's planetary impact minimal...
Packing
Packing is mostly about boxes, packing materials, and what you keep versus chuck.
First, the boxes. We had saved up a lot of boxes, snagged them from work and friends. We still had to get more and we ended up buying a few moving kits from Costco - not so many that we had extras.
Packing fragiles can be tricky. First, we used up all our stuffable clothing. Mugs got wrapped in t-shirts. Plates in towels. Why buy extra packing materials when you're likely going to wash your clothing on the other end anyway if its not neatly folded and has gotten dusty? For large, flat items like picture frames and flat screen TVs, I wrapped them in some non-scratching bubblewrap or their cover, and then I wrapped them inside throw rugs and taped that up like a Christmas present. Then I put them inside the box that our boxes came in which was a long shallow rectangle of flatted boxes. We also were given some fantastic bubblewrap which we reused with great success, no peanuts were used. For other fragile stuff, we used old newspapers and unbleached recycled paper towels.
Instead of throwing out stuff we didn't want to take, we craigslisted it, gave things away to friends, and donated things to charity. Canned goods we didn't want to bring. Garden plants. Clothing from our closet we never wear. Any viable container that was at least half full (cleaners, toiletries) went with us - caps taped closed and troublesome ones put in ziplock backs or wrapped in plastic bags. Wine boxes, easily gotten at liquor stores and such, make great boxes for glassware and jars, not to mention those half-full bottles and tubes mentioned above. Sometimes I just filled a whole wine box with stuff and then stuffed the box itself in a trash bag or two.
We read the owner's manual for the truck to determine the most fuel efficient way to pack the truck. Also, to avoid a lot of weight in the truck, we USPS media mailed ourselves most of our books, saving a lot of truck weight and the USPS gets better gas mileage than we would.
Moving
Because we were moving a very long distance and we are cheap and wanted control over how it was done, we decided to use a Do-It-Yourself moving truck. Penske came in with a substantially more reasonable price than U-Haul and Budget, and then on top of that we added a AAA discount AND a trick of the trade: you'll have much cheaper rental fees if you return the truck to a metropolitan area. Since we were moving stuff from a small California town to an even less urban area in the mountains of New Hampshire, we found that it saved us many hundreds of dollars to pick up the truck about 20 minutes away, and drop it off in the nearest major metropolitan area instead of the tiny drop-off location nearest to our destination which was still an hour away- at little additional diesel expense. The best way to figure this out is to play with the pickup and drop-off locations on the company's reservation website until you get the quote you like. We got the size truck we needed, made sure the tires were good, and turned on the economy gas mileage option of the engine (not on by default).
We brought a lot of our own snacks and drinks. Surprisingly, only a handful of states on Interstate 80 have rest stops with recycling facilities - California and Utah, then not until you hit around Iowa. We bagged our recycling and kept it around until we hit one of these nice rest stops and could dispose of things appropriately. Even though we were traveling, we still took leftovers from our dinner, like pizza, and ate it for breakfast or lunch on the road.
We took the most direct path, and stayed within the speed limit and tried to get the best mileage per gallon we could. The only thing we kicked ourselves for not asking was if the truck could take biodiesel, or we would have filled up using that. We did notice that while consumer gas stations have rules about not topping off, and regularly get cleaned up, the truck pumps are ridiculously fowl. Diesel is often puddled on the ground along with leaking oil from the trucks. I got very nervous one day when we were finishing filling up and the guy next to us hops out of his truck with a lit cigarette dangling from his lips as he pumped his fuel. Not cool. There needs to be more attention paid to this area of trucking and environmental waste management.
Unpacking
Unpacking required a bit of organization but it was very satisfying. Basically, we sorted out the used newspaper, slightly used paper towels, packing bubble wrap, and boxes. The boxes we carefully flatted to craigslist to someone who needs them for moving. The bubble wrap was packed back into suitcases to go back to California to give back to the person who let us borrow it. The slightly used paper towels were used to dust the furniture off as it came out of the truck, and any leftover is in the laundry room for the next time dusting or cleanup is needed. The newspaper we kept and are using in the woodstove. The ziplocks, plastic bags and garbage bags we used for packing were then resorted and used for non-food related purposes.
Because of all this forethought, we have very little actual waste from our moving expedition. Likely less than one trashcan full.
Entertaining
There's nothing like a nice glass of red wine at the end of a long day. Sometime soon I need to talk about corks versus screen tops, but there's also another kind of cork - the plastic cork. It looks kindof like a hard sponge, but low and behold- it's recyclable! We cracked open a bottle of Kono Barú 2005 South Eastern Australia Shiraz when Shane noticed that not only was the label upside-down to indicate it comes from the Southern Hemisphere, but the cute yellow cork was #4 plastic and marked for recycling. Did I mention it was a very nice bottle of wine?
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September 19, 2007
Top Ten Ways A Pirate Is Greener Than Your Average Landlubber
Ahoy! Today, September 19, is International Talk Like a Pirate Day, matey. So I thought I'd share with ye the Top Ten Ways A Pirate Is Greener Than Your Average Landlubber over a jug o' grog:
(10) Pirates used rain barrels on deck to collect drinking and washing water
(9) Pirates recycled and reused bottles for their rum, passing messages and as weapons in bar brawls. Then they went back for refills.
(8) Pirates spent as little time on land as possible, helping avoid spreading invasive species
(7) Pirates commuted less and bought local. While merchant vessels carried goods far and wide, pirates took what was nearby, supporting local towns and pubs.
(6) Pirates repaired things instead of buying new versions. They mended sails and damaged ships instead of upgrading immediately. When they did upgrade, they generally "bought" used.
(5) Pirates were kinder to animals (parrots, monkeys) than they were to people.
(4) Pirates kept it simple, from what they wore to how they navigated. No need to launch expensive satellites into space for GPS units to work when the stars are right above your head.
(3) Pirates went paperless. Their codes were generally not written down, because they might be incriminating. Most of their contracts were verbal.
(2) Pirates used wind power to sail the seas
(1) Pirates rarely bathed - that's water conservation for ye.
Happy Talk Like A Pirate Day!
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September 11, 2007
Queen Of Green Passes Away
By the time I was a teenager, it was the late 1980's and early 1990's. Amongst the public service messages drilled into my generation, like "Just Say No" and "Stop, Drop and Roll", there was another without a cutesy tag line.
It basically went something like this: Don't buy makeup tested on animals. Those poor bunnies were often used for their sensitivity to such products. Ok, I also went on a one-girl boycott of Burger King because of their past support of Japanese whaling, but that's not what I want to talk about today.
Throughout high school, there were two things I always had in my backpack: a waterbottle and a little jar of lip balm from The Body Shop.
Satsuma, Pink Grapefruit, Coconut, Passion Fruit, Grapeseed... I've tried them all. I still use them. At the time, they seemed to be one of the only animal-testing free brands readily available and affordable. You could go in and get refills of their perfume scents, and everything came in delightful little jars.
Without the guilt. I knew for sure that no bunnies were harmed for my shiny lips.
This past week, Anita Roddick, the founder of Body Shop, passed away. During her too-short lifetime, she proved that business could be environmentally and culturally conscious AND successful - these values did not have to compete amongst themselves.
The Body Shop has had a set of corporate values that few, regardless of political or ideological viewpoints, can argue with:
- Against Animal Testing
- Support Community Trade
- Activate Self-Esteem
- Defend Human Rights
- Protect Our Planet
Roddick, known as the “Queen of Green,†was lauded around the world for trailblazing business practices that promoted environmentalism and other causes dear to her heart, from human rights to Third World debt relief.
“Businesses have the power to do good,†Roddick wrote on the Web site of the company, which was bought by the French company L’Oreal Group last year for $1.14 billion.
The Body Shop opposed animal testing and tried to encourage Third World development by purchasing materials from small communities in poorer countries.
...
[Roddick] drew inspiration from women’s beauty rituals that she discovered while traveling in developing countries, and lessons that her mother passed on from life during World War II.
“Why waste a container when you can refill it? And why buy more of something than you can use? We behaved as she did in the Second World War, we reused everything, we refilled everything and we recycled all we could,†Roddick wrote.
More At: MSNBC: Body Shop founder Anita Roddick dies at 64
According to WorldWatch (and National Geographic), the cosmetics industry is more than a $18 billion dollar market worldwide. Let's hope it continues to become more environmentally sound, cruelty-free and sustainable with each passing year and let's not forget Anita Roddick's role in making that happen.
Posted by sorsha at 7:33 AM | Comments (2) | TrackBack
August 14, 2007
Local Légumes: From Regional Raspberries To Civic Cabbages
We Californians are spoiled when it comes to many things - the mediterranean-like climate alone makes the Central Valley ideal for producing a variety of crops almost all year long. However, this summer I've had a rather rude awakening - the rest of the country doesn't have it so good. It seems now like Santa Cruz, California, is the epicenter of organic living, sustainable farming, and a year-long spread of fresh, yummy produce.
Let's start back in late March, early April... my husband and I were considering purchasing a piece of property in the White Mountains of New Hampshire. After deciding we liked the house itself, we did some local research, including going to the local markets. Ironically, the organic rasberries we saw in the markets of New Hampshire were from: *heh* Santa Cruz county, California.
My first thought: I didn't come 3,234 miles (says Google Maps) to eat my own (I believe I used the word "freakin") California raspberries. And they've not traveled well. And, oh, look, they're almost $8 for a pint?!
Now I've spent most of the summer in New Hampshire and the produce has gotten better as the Northeastern growing season has produced its first crops for the summer, the peaches from New Jersey aren't bad. I've had some fantastic lettuce, blueberries and apples from some family friends' gardens in Vermont, and my herb gardens are out of control due to all the rain.
Still, I haven't found great produce in regular supply, but I know it's around. Farmers' Markets are around but not as close as I would like. However, recently I have been looking into CSAs (Community Supported Agriculture) in the area.
Basically, a CSA is a program where people in an area buy "shares" of a farm's produce for the year. Sometimes you have the option of actually doing a little community work on the farm as well. In return for your share, you receive a portion of the farm's bounty, usually weekly. Most CSAs are organic in nature, but they may include fruits, veggies, eggs, and even fresh meats - depending on your region. The produce is brought to you super-fresh and virtually free of packaging.
Growing seasons vary greatly in the United States. For example, in Santa Cruz, CA, the CSAs may run for 33 weeks - from March to November. However, in New Hampshire, they tend to run July through October, which is only half as many weeks. Think of it as a farm subscription.
A great resource I came across while searching for CSA's was LocalHarvest, a web directory of farmer's markets and CSAs, and other organic retailers. I could research some of the CSAs in my area and even see what kinds of produce they grow yearly. One last note - CSAs work on the principle of paying for your subscription in advance. From what I've seen, this generally works out to between $15-40 a week, so don't let the overall subscription numbers phase you immediately.
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June 15, 2007
Planet News: Pesky Plastics Prove Problematic
She could've choked, but would you take it away from her?
When I first visited South Africa, my SA friends joked to me that the National Flower of South Africa was not the King Protea, but the plastic bag. There were so many plastic shopping bags on the side of the road that despite the huge class differences, the government decided to give the bags a value - you are charged at the register for any bag you need. The bag tax worked and now the roadsides are less cluttered with litter.
Other countries, especially within the European Union such as Ireland have had similar successes. Yet in the United States, such taxes are highly controversial and slow to become realized. So far, only San Francisco has acted, but as of next month, all of California's large supermarkets will be required to take back and recycle plastic bags, which is a good step forward.
Yet these seemingly simple steps toward progress all happen at maddeningly slow rates. On the other hand, I know people who cut the tops off of yogurt containers to grow their seedlings. While I applaud them for their dedication to the REUSE principle, it's not something I can see myself doing in the short term as I routinely knock over the orchid plant sitting on the window sill.
Still, I do not understand why consumer plastics nowadays aren't made up entirely of old plastics melted down and reused. It's not that hard to melt plastics, from what I understand. It's easier than dealing with metal, isn't it? GI Joe figures are maleable, so why aren't we seeing more recycled plastics, especially in packaging. What's the deal here?
I see some stuff, like composite decking, may be considerably greener than their all-wood alternatives.
The Water Bottle
I drink a lot of water, compared to the average person. I always have. By high school, I had Nalgene bottles as part of my daily wardrobe. I have a variety of colors and sizes and logos, sipping attachments and such. My father joked about how I should buy stock in the Nalgene water bottles, and I needed my own support group, something like alt.addiction.waterbottles. I think I've had to chuck one bottle since 1992, because I cracked it.
There's been a lot of talk recently about the single serving water bottle, those sinister translucent personal drinking vessels filling our landfills at a rate of 30 billion a year in the United States alone. And frankly, the rest of the world - especially the third world - often relies on bottled water for safely reasons, so we're certainly not the only one using them.
Recently, my father sent me a New York Times article on the water bottle, titled The Unintended Consequences of Hyperhydration.
Eleven states — California, Connecticut, Delaware, Hawaii, Iowa, Maine, Massachusetts, Michigan, New York, Oregon and Vermont — give this valueless stuff a value, however. Typically we pay a nickel when purchasing a container and get the nickel back if we return the container for recycling. It’s a deposit, a contract binding us to our garbage. Though these days, that nickel may elicit only the faintest twinge of regret as we toss the empty into the trash and rejoin our busy lives.
...
Bottle bills are still surprisingly good at inspiring recycling and reducing litter. But, though they are idiosyncratic in every state, the vast majority of the laws share one colossal, unanticipated flaw: they place a deposit on beer and carbonated beverages only. The bottle bill’s scope, and to some extent the very vision of a more waste-conscious world that first motivated it, has been swiftly trivialized by the ubiquity of bottled water. This year, Americans will drink more than 30 billion single-serving bottles of water. Oregonians will throw out about 170 million empty ones. Those same bottles, filled with something fizzy, would carry nickel deposits.
Reading this article strangely inspired me to poetry. Thankfully (for you and me), this doesn't happen very often. I decided to write a haiku poem about the water bottle, so here goes.
My Haiku To The Water Bottle:
Thirty-Some Billion
Annual Plastic Menace
Refill And Drink Up
Don't worry. I won't give up my day job, but you should consider how your family or company uses bottled water. If you have the drinking volume, switch to water coolers, and if not, for goodness sake, recycle those bottles anyway.
I remember when I was in Kenya, if you wanted to buy a Coke, you had several pricing choices for the same bottle, depending on whether you drank it there or took it with you. The price of the bottle itself is not insubstantial compared to the liquid itself. Also, consider where the water is coming from, and buy as local as possible. Water weighs a lot, and if your water is coming from across the country, or the world, then the environmental impact of shipping it to you is also not small.
Kitchen Products
One of the best things you can do here is start using cloth shopping bags. Not only will you reduce the number of plastic bags living in your pantry, but almost every shop these days gives a discount for bringing them in.
Disposable plastic cups and plates have no place in my home, and never have. My mother gave me some of her washable patioware when I went off to college - plastic plates that could be washed and reused for years. These inexpensive plates cost little more than a package or two of paper plates, so they pay for themselves quickly enough. If your mom gives them to you, then they're free.
If you have to use disposables, I've seen some recycled materials ones floating around in the market lately, like Preserve Plateware made from recycled plastic yogurt cups (also dishwasher safe so you can reuse them for a while).
Food Prep
My grandmother still washes out ziplock bags and reuses them, but frankly, I'm not that hardcore. I am going to try to put those old ziplocks to use though - in the form of putting yucky garbage waste in them so I can go longer without taking out the trash.
That said, I don't seem to chuck many ziplocks. Mostly we use them for permanent purposes, like our baggie of toiletries for airplane travel, and keeping the pieces of our boardgames in order. If I'm going to keep something in the fridge, I generally put it in a dishwasher-safe Rubbermaid container. The only time I seem to use plastic wrap is when I'm cooking things in advance for a party or something.
There are choices now for baggies, plastic wrap, recycled aluminum foil, and unbleached wax paper and parchment paper. Check out the kitchen section at Greenfeet for some other kitchen options.
Trash and Pet Waste
Garbage bags are an interesting topic though, as companies like Glad make their landfill-bound trash bags not biodegradable on purpose so the landfill "stays intact". I am not sure how this really works. If it biodegrades after 5 years or something, isn't that long enough for the landfill? I will need to look into this more. It certainly hasn't stopped companies like BioBag from coming out with biodegradable kitchen bags and food storage containers. They also make Biodegradable Doggie Doo Bags. Some cities like San Francisco are even using pet waste as fuel.
Other Health Products
Consider replacing disposable plastics with more permanent options, and if certain parts of a product need replacement - like razor blades, consider a product that only replaces that part instead of the whole unit.
Recycline's Preserve Product Line: Specializes in recycled plastic products including toothbrushes, razors, even flavored toothpicks. There are also items like toothbrushes made from other renewable materials, like the Source Toothbrush.
Posted by sorsha at 2:17 PM | Comments (3) | TrackBack
May 30, 2007
A Personal Problem With Paper
Let's start this out with a bad haiku about recycling paper products, shall we?
Flattened Tree Remains
Stacked Precariously High
Our Landfills Abound
Nowadays recycled paper products can be anything from specialty papers like elephant poop stationary to recycled material copy and printer paper that is virtually impossible to tell from the standard kind.
Recycled paper products don't just limit the number of trees felled for the care and feeding of your pet printer. Making paper from existing paper means less processing of the tree pulp is needed, and let me tell you, paper processing is a messy business. Also, few papers are 100% recycled materials, because virgin pulp is often needed to keep the paper fibers strong enough to bond.
Truthfully, the best thing you can do here is reduce the total amount of paper you use in the first place. When paper is required, here are some options. Also, I've made some I made ListMania! Lists on Amazon.com for Green Living household paper products, baby & nursery supplies and feminine products.
Kitchen Paper Products
When I looked at what paper products we used in our kitchen, I admit there is not much we can improve upon - but there is always something.
I'm lucky. Paper plates, cups and napkins and plastic utensils never featured in our home while I was growing up. For as long as I can remember, my mother has had washable patioware - plastic plates that could be washed and reused for years. These inexpensive plates cost little more than a package or two of paper plates, so they pay for themselves quickly.
Cloth napkins have always been the norm for us as well. We have many, many different patterns and use them for napkins, to clean up spills, and various other things. They only cost a dollar or two to make yourself, or you can buy them. I'm still surprised when people are afraid to get them dirty. Most are darker, brightly colored patterns and I have yet to have a stain that didn't disappear after a washing.
If you have to use disposables, I've seen some recycled materials ones floating around in the market lately, like Preserve Plateware made from recycled plastic yogurt cups (also dishwasher safe so you can reuse them for a while), or Seventh Generation recycled-material paper plates.
The one paper product we do use in the kitchen is the paper towel and even those are only used as a last resort after the cloth kitchen towels. Usually I buy these paper towels at Costco, but they don't have unbleached paper towels. I just found out that Amazon grocery has Seventh Generation paper towels for substantially less than Costco's Bounty bulk packs. They also have specialty products for babies and women.
You should also remember to limit the cardboard packaging you go through. Buy in bulk and try to avoid single serving varieties of packaging, instead favoring the larger versions.
Bathroom Paper Products
Bathroom paper products are a (forgive the pun) touchy subject. As a person with allergies, I have tried the cheaper brands of facial tissue only to give myself a red nose. Other people swear by certain TP brands. The trick here, I think, is to experiment. Buy a single roll of a new, greener brand when you can, and give it a try. Just like any consumer product, you may need to shop around. Another idea is to use it only in a less frequently used space, like a guest room, where people are unlikely to complain from repetitive usage problems, if you know what I mean.
I am pretty brand loyal to Kleenex, despite the fact that they use only new fibers for "superior softness", but at least the boxes are made from recycled materials. I also hope to see them using fewer chemicals in their manufactoring process on some of their lines. I really don't care what color my tissues are, provided they work.
When we were kids, we had Dixie cups in the bathroom with our favorite cartoon characters. We went through at least a couple a day (2 kids, several drinks and brushings). That adds up fast! Swapping out your Mickey Mouse paper cups for a set of Mickey Mouse dishwasher safe plastic cups will save not only the paper used in the cups, but the packaging, and your time shopping. Just make sure they're dishwasher safe, so you can throw them in once in a while. This is another case of the cups paying for themselves quickly. If you want to have the cups around for guests and such, make sure your kids know to take one cup a day, and to use it throughout the day.
In addition to Seventh Generation, Whole Foods and other more mainstream brands are starting to carry bathroom paper products with at least some portion of recycled materials.
Other Health Products
It's pretty safe to say that anything made of paper or cotton is going to have a green alternative product choice nowadays. Anything fibrous and white is often bleached and treated. Products like cotton balls, swabs, diapers and feminine products all have green options. Organic Essentials is a personal care brand with a green mission.
Office Supplies
It's a sad fact that most office workers will waste more at work than they do at home because they're not paying for it. But in truth, we all pay for it, on a larger scale - landfills are community property, after all. Once it gets there, we all own it.
Firstly, one of the best things you can do in terms of office supplies is to make some corporate policies on consumption.
Some companies do this by giving people and departments codes to the copy machine and such. Others have multiple printers - a final draft one with slick marketing paper, and a draft printer which uses more eco-friendly paper products and inks for internal use that don't have to last forever, where the printers default to printing both sides. Putting a recycle bin near the printer also helps.
You can also provide methods for people to store and share digital documents instead of printing them to read them. In a personal office, signing up for online bill pay will reduce the paper statements you get in the mail, and you can store them on your hard drive instead.
Recycled paper mailing supplies and printing papers are pretty readily available these days, and seem to look and act just like their bleached newly-treed equivalents.
Also remember that your standard office also needs to consider kitchen and bath products, just like a household does. Nowadays there are even green cleaning agencies around.
Posted by sorsha at 2:16 PM | Comments (0) | TrackBack
Green Cleaning: What's Going Down The Drain?
When I heard that California Sea Otters are dying due to a parasite found in flushable cat litter, I started thinking about all the stuff that goes down the drain in the average household.
Recent studies have found that fish populations are greatly affected by the estrogen hormones being flushed down toilets as a result of women taking birth control pills. All the great pills we pop eventually find their way out into waste water plants, which only remove certain chemicals before discharging the waste water back into the oceans and the environment. We might not want to have big families, but we certainly want wild fishing populations to have them. Right now we appear to be doping up male fish so they start looking and acting like girls. Clearly we need to address some of these hormones and chemicals during the treatment phase, because banning meds is not an option.
My Shark Hormone Haiku:
Popped The Pill And Peed
Sharks Take To Dressing In Drag
No More Jaws Sequels
After thinking about all the lovely stuff we humans send down our drains, I decided that it was time to do an audit on all the bad stuff washing down our drains at home. I consider us a pretty green household, but I was rather freaked out when I started counting all the stuff going down the drain. Waste water comes from five main sources in our house: sinks, showers, toilets, laundry machines, and outside in the yard.
Kitchen Cleaning Products
Seventh Generation and Simple Green seem to be some of the most easily accessible "green" brands and has a variety of general purpose cleaners you'd normally use on a regular basis. You can get these products at places like Whole Foods, some mainstream grocery stores, and online at places like Amazon Grocery. Costco carries Simple Green. The Seventh Generation line ranges from cleaning products to laundry and paper products. They also have specialty products for babies and women.
Sometimes you have to hunt more for green specialty products, like Earth Friendly Products Dishwasher Rinse Aid. Earth Friendly Brands also goes by the ECOS label, and includes a line of products that overlaps well with Seventh Generation and others. Ecover also makes a rinse aid and other dishwasher and laundry products.
If you're looking for something a little more posh, Mrs. Meyer's cleaning products have great scents and are a nice green choice. Mrs. Meyers is sold at specialty kitchen stores and online places like Amazon, etc.
Laundry Cleaning Products
When it comes to laundry, I go with the bulk strategy and buy a giant container of concentrated low-sudsing detergent that is dye-free, etc. I buy it from Costco and I just found out its also High-Efficiency washer compliant. That said, when switching to a private septic system, you have to be more careful, and perhaps everyone, even people on city water like us, should keep to those precautions. There are a number of eco-friendly laundry products out there and the various brands I've mentioned before in the cleaning area all have laundry products as well. Also, these greener laundry products often have scent-free versions for people who are sensitive to such things.
Chlorine bleach is something you're going to avoid. Companies like Seventh Generation have a Chlorine Free Bleach.
Bathroom Products
I personally like Method Brand liquid soaps in the bathroom. They smell good and are biodegradable, etc. Their packaging is made from recyclable materials and they don't test on animals. They are also available in cheap three-packs at Costco, so I like them for that, too.
Glass, mirror and bowl cleaners are available from a variety of green brands, including Seventh Generation and Earth Friendly Products. Lesser known brands like Naturally Yours also have tub and tile cleaners, toilet cleaners, and bleach products.
Pet Products
Pet litter is a tricky topic. Firstly, many litters are very bad for the environment and for the animal. Wood litters like cedar shavings are toxic to the animal. Since our rabbits tend to chew on their litter and nest in it, we have to use something non-toxic. We use Yesterday's News which is made of recycled newspaper. Yesterday's News also comes in cat, ferret, rabbit and small animal (guinea pigs, mice, rats, etc) versions.
In colder areas where people sometimes keep kitty litter in their trunks in winter in case they get stuck in the snow and ice - make sure you get eco-friendly litters. Better yet, bring dirt instead.
You also want to avoid flushable cat litters. As I said before, the same parasite (Toxoplasma gondii) that causes doctors to warn pregnant mothers away from cats and their litter boxes is now being flushed down the toilets and ending up in the bays and killing sea otters.
Outdoor Cleaners
Outdoor cleaners like carwashes and deck cleaners often go straight into the ground, or where we live, they go down the drain and flow straight out into the Monterey Bay. The water is not treated like the water you flush down the drain is. Therefore it is even more important that you turn a critical eye on these sorts of products.
Simple Green seems to focus more on liquid cleaning products that are non-toxic and biodegradable. They have the normal line of cleansers, plus some very useful ones I haven't seen in many other green brands: car/wheel wash, DIY pressurewasher stuff for deck, siding and driveways, paint cleanup (replacing stuff like paint thinner), bbq and carpet cleaners.
Companies like BioShield have products like eco-friendly paints and stains as well as cleaning products. I have not found a good supplier of these guys yet, but you can get their products online.
Lawn and Garden Products
Pesticides, fungicides, etc. are very prevalent in garden products. Home organic gardening products and tactics are certainly more Earth-friendly. Consider checking out a book like The Green Gardener: Working with Nature, Not Against It or another guide like it for some alternatives.
Other Health and Household Products
Shaving Cream, toothpaste, mouthwash, shampoos and conditioners, hairsprays. Nowadays there are natural and organic alternatives to many standard brands. Check out the National Geographic Green Product Guide for greener brands of your favorite personal care items.
Method Brand also has some specialty products like Granite & Marble Countertop Spray and Leather Cleaner.
And now for my green cleaning haiku.
Primordial Goo
Disinfected, Nothing Grows
Mr. Clean Prevails
Posted by sorsha at 12:18 PM | Comments (6) | TrackBack