What's your footprint?

Every so often I like to visit one of those online carbon footprint calculators to check in to see how good I’m doing. There’s a lot of calculators online but I like this one the best (it allows you to fine tune your answers and paint a better picture of your true usages). So even with my recycling, my minimal meat consumption, my 45+ mpg car and my limiting my air travel to bare minimum, I’m still at 10.48 metric tons of CO₂ created by my lifestyle; 50% less than the US average, but still way above where we all need to be. My biggest culprits? The 2.29 metric tons created by my use of heating oil (necessary to keep my house/pipes from freezing in winter) and my car, my sweet little car at 3.20 metric tons for 15,000 miles of driving. Another great thing about this calculator is that you can instantly see how small changes affect your CO₂ footprint: like switching from eating only white meat to becoming a vegetarian saves a half ton of CO₂ or driving 5,000 miles less a year saves a full ton of CO₂.

www.carbonfootprint.com/calculator.aspx

Water, Water, (redux)

I often get a lot of flak for not having a toilet tank at my house in Maine. Last year the water in it froze and it cracked the porcelain. The bowl remained intact, but the tank was unsalvageable. So thinking I was lucky that I had a toilet that was 2 pieces and it was a popular and prolific brand (American Standard), I figured finding a replacement for the tank wouldn’t be too difficult to do. But alas, despite web searches and even calling American Standard, they were unable to match up the model numbers on my toilet to anything in their system. So it’s been a year of me having to manually flush my toilet (for those of you squeamish out there: it’s called fill up a bucket, dump it into the bowl quickly, gravity does the rest. I think this is a skill that everyone should have in their back pocket, it will make losing power for those with electric water pumps slightly less obnoxious).

But it seems like the more crap (no pun intended) I get from friends and family, the less I want to actually have this issue fixed. It’s not a hassle for me personally, and well it is my house, right? But there are other reasons: it’s a silent protest against products created to have interchangeable parts, but when one of those parts is impossible to find, it defeats the purpose of having interchangeable parts.

And what I feel is most important, that filling that bucket of water every time is a conscious reminder of the fact that 3 BILLION people on this planet don’t have clean or safe drinking water. I pause and say a little thank you for what I have. I take a moment and remind myself to not take for granted the water that comes out of the tap….that I don’t have to walk 3 miles to get that gallon of water….that wars are not fought so I can drink it…that I don’t have to boil it to make it clean.

Kilowatt Killing

Always looking for a new way to save energy… but often feel like I have ‘picked all the low hanging fruit’. Enter the Kill-a-Watt meter, which I was able to check out for free from my local library. It’s a small device that you plug your appliances into that gives you a read out of how many watts of power they draw… on or off. That’s the key here, there are so many appliances that are energy “vampires”, sucking power even when they’re turned off. I’ve got a few power strips for my television and cable and my desk, so that I can hit the kill switch when I’m done for the day, but for items plugged directly into the wall socket, I wanted to find out exactly what was up.

Reading Lamp with a 60 watt incandescent bulb: 57 watts,
With a compact fluorescent bulb (comparable luminance to 40 watt bulb): 9 watts
With a LED bulb (comparable luminance to 40 watt bulb): 6 watts
Verdict: it’s easy to see that the CFL and the LED bulbs are HUGE power savers. This was my first foray into the LED bulb and they are expensive (I got a deal for a $12 bulb, but the 60 watt equivalent would have been $40), but the power savings is considerable. The enclosed CFL I originally bought was too noisy but will switch some lamps to the coil versions. I now know that 40 watt equivalent is just not bright enough for my needs. Lesson learned.

Christmas Lights: regular incandescent 38 watts, LED version 3 watts.
Verdict: another considerable savings. I plug these in for a good 6-8 hours a day (I like the way the light it makes my house look!) The LED version aren’t cheap compared to the old fashioned kind (for a strand of 100: $25 versus $3!!) but again the energy savings will add up.

Refrigerator: as it sits idle: 0 watts, when running 400 watts.
Verdict: Can’t do much about that, living in a colder climate, it kicks off less frequently. But my next fridge will definitely be a more compact version and a higher Energy Star rating.

Computer on: 30 watts
and Printer: on but idle or off: 3 watts, printing: 15 watts
Verdict: No brainer here, unplug them both when not using!

Television: off 6 watts, on 150 watts.
Verdict: Another easy way to save, just unplug that TV when it’s not in use!

Dehumidifier: a necessity living in a damp climate with a finished basement…off: 1 watt, running: 390 watts.
Verdict: I’m most likely just going to keep this one plugged in all the time, since the unit has a humidity sensor telling it when it needs to run.

Electric Space Heater: Here’s the doozy: off: 0 watts, Running on low power: 860 watts, on high power: 1500+!
Verdict: easy to see here that electric isn’t the most efficient way to heat. I’m only using this one sporadically for little quick blasts of heating.

Water water, everywhere, and not a drop to drink

So I’ve been holed up at the lake cabin for the last few weeks, and while it was raining for the first 10 days I was here, my plumbing has been hit or miss. After 2 visits from the plumber (and 1 by the well guy) I finally had something flowing out of all my taps…2 days later, it’s back to a trickle. The moral of the story here is, I need my water simplified here... Sure, I can count on 2 hands my water fixtures (kitchen sink, dishwasher, washing machine, bathroom sink, tub/shower, toilet, baseboard forced hot water heaters) but when something goes wrong, I have no idea how to fix it other than calling Jon the plumber over and handing over a check. My 7th grade industrial arts education did not adequately prepare me for this.

I’m proud that I was able to live for 2 weeks without running water (to answer the inevitable questions: bottled water for drinking/cooking, laundry at the Laundromat, shower at the gym, flush the toilet with buckets of lake water). But the best way to simplify is to be able to handle things yourself without having to call in the cavalry. It’s also a (very small scale) reminder that millions of people don’t have access to clean and safe drinking water and how important it is to keep water supplies clean and free of pollutants.

God, I love the dump.

I mean I realize that’s not a phrase you hear everyday (or even once a decade) especially because most people these days don’t even come within miles of the dump any more. And to be honest, my ‘dump’ isn’t even a true dump, but a delightfully titled ‘Transfer Station’ where town residents bring all sorts of unwanted items to transfer onto the next station… whether it be the actual dump, the recycling facility or someone else’s living quarters. The great part about having to package up and carry your waste to a separate location is how conscious it makes you of how much you make. When you drop another bag in the bin and then drag that bin out to the curb once a week, you don’t think twice about how much is in the bin, much less where the contents go once the bin is returned to you empty. Having to put that bag in your trunk and then drive it down the street, well, that’s another story. When I see that my bag is joining the hundreds of other bags of my neighbors, I have an instant reminder of how dirty trash can be—take a deep whiff, that smell only gets worse the more people add to the pile. Right next to the compactor is a little area where people drop off usable items that they no longer want (sort of an in-person Freecycle corner). Head to the recycling area and you’re responsible for sorting your cans, paper and plastic… but turn the corner and that’s where the real fun begins. Piles of scrap wood, appliances, toilets, furniture (all categorized but free for the taking if it’s something you want) And on Sundays, I’ve seen people just hanging out sitting in the furniture section, shooting the breeze…when’s the last time you got social about your garbage? I think the only way we’re going to be able to solve our trash crisis (and thus the environmental crisis) is to make everyone more conscious AND responsible for the waste they create.

Oopsie Poopsie...

So an eco-confession to make… despite all my attempts to make the adventure cat into the eco-cat, I have begun to realize that I've made a pretty big oops. He's been eating his organic cat food since he was a mere furball, he's been using the post-consumer pine pellet cat litter and I was putting the used litter sawdust (non-feces) in the green waste recycling bin until I got the cease and desist from the city… then the sawdust was going in the worm bin. The poops, I was always dropping right into the toilet and flushing away. Unfortunately, I'm finding out now (after 10 years of reading environmental books, magazines, blogs etc…) is that flushing cat feces is actually illegal in California and probably should never enter the municipal sewer system anywhere. The issue is a parasite called Toxoplasma Gondii that many (but not all) cats carry and it can lead to Toxoplasmosis Gondii, the main reason pregnant women are told not to be the one change the litter box. There's no way to treat for the parasite's eggs at waste treatment plants and when that water heads back into the ocean, the parasite goes with it. The parasite is blamed for a high number of deaths of sea lion and sea otters.

Now from what I've read, it seems that if you have a septic system and don't live near a water body, you should be okay to flush cat poop, but if you're on the city's sewer system sadly, the only safe way to dispose of cat waste is to wrap it in plastic and send it off to the land fill. It can ONLY be composted in a pile that has temperatures over 160º or below zero, as those are the only temperatures that will kill the organisms (and NEVER use the composted material on plants that you eat). The internets are surprisingly mum on ideas on how to face this problem ecologically-there are special composting bins for dog feces but the parasites in cat feces are neglected. If some creative and scientific mind (I really have to get myself an MIT intern) could get on a solution to this problem I bet the owners of the 90 million U.S. cats would sit up and start to listen.

Reading List: Sleeping Naked Is Green: How an Eco-Cynic Unplugged Her Fridge, Sold Her Car, and Found Love in 366 Days (Vanessa Farquharson)

I picked this one up based on its title and cover, and decided to give it a fair chance because these days, I pretty much will ready anything with the word 'green' on it. The title is pretty gimmicky, most likely aimed at urban 20-somethings like Vanessa who love their designer purses and trendy cocktails but can't seem to silence the voice that reminds them of their childhood diet of environmental education. She gets kudos for taking on some big issues that I personally can't convince myself to do (giving up the car, shutting off the cable, and unplugging the fridge) but with a goal of 366 environmental challenges (the project fell on a leap year), the list is quite a bit uneven in places (like: 68. Using a natural bronzer, 250. Not using any toothpicks, 356. Going skinny dipping, and 363. Deleting all spam and stale emails from my Gmail inbox)

The highlight for me was when she got No Impact Man Colin Bevan to admit how exactly he and his family gave up using toilet paper for their own year-long challenge-information that was not included in Bevan's book or  documentary and answers he would give to interviewers were always curt and left the question unanswered. She did write one of my favorite new quotes about: “the compost hitting the wind turbine”.

If you're looking for solutions, it is worth a scan only if you are new to the challenge of being more environmental but if you've been around the eco-block a time or two, the list will leave you thinking you've heard it all before. (or you can just head to her blog, which she's since stopped updating, the full list of 366 changes is: http://greenasathistle.com/green-listed/)

Jumping in the Freecycle Pool

Well, I've taken the plunge and joined the other free-cyclers in my neighborhood and I have to say what a great way to both get rid of something you don't use and also try to find something you truly will use all without spending a cent. I lurked on the message boards for a few weeks before trying to decide what it was I wanted to ask for (a battery operated pump for my balance ball-still no offers though) but after seeing a WANTED post for a Roomba and realizing mine was just sitting in the utility closet collecting dust, I figured why not pass it on to someone who could appreciate it. Most freecyclers arrange time and place to make their exchanges, but the cheapest and easiest way for all parties I figured was to just leave the item on the porch and the WANTER could just pick it up at their convenience. No fuss, no muss. And no hard feelings if or when the item breaks because it's all for the low low price of FREE! And even better there's no obligation—say you really need a new blender, what do you have to lose by posting a request? If you find one, you've saved yourself the money (and the manufacture of a new product), if you don't find one, you're no worse for trying. To find a group in your area: www.freecycle.org
And Freecycle's not the only place Care2 ran a list of 5 other online free or trade sites.

Doc Review: Garbage Warrior (2007)

All I can say is-wow what a week. Working on the “Hope for Haiti Now” telethon was truly both the most surreal and the most rewarding experience of my alter ego's career. (I mean it's not every day one gets to work side-by-side with George Clooney) And to top it all off, we were able to raise a lot of money for relief and recovery. Spent the weekend recovering from the emotional and exhausting roller coaster ride of live production and finally had the chance to finish watching Garbage Warrior, the 2007 documentary about Michael Reynolds, the New Mexican architect who has been creating “Earthship Biotechture” (Earthship n. 1. passive solar home made of natural and recycled materials 2. thermal mass construction for temperature stabilization. 3. renewable energy & integrated water systems make the Earthship an off-grid home with little to no utility bills. Biotecture n. 1. the profession of designing buildings and environments with consideration for their sustainability. 2. A combination of biology and architecture.)-otherwise known as houses made of cement, used tires, and empty beverage containers. Reynolds found much resistance to his creative solution for home building from the NM legislature, but in 2004 after the Southeastern Asian tsunami, he and his crew headed to the devastated Andaman Islands where he taught locals a quick, cheap and sturdy way to build new homes. One can only hope he's already bought his ticket to Haiti and is plotting how his skills can help create new homes there as well.

Book Review: Wake Up and Smell the Planet

Wake Up and Smell the Planet: The Non-Pomous, Non-Preachy Grist Guide to Greening Your Day (edited by Brangien Davis with Katharine Wroth)

Finally was able to track down this little book from the editors of grist.org (“Gloom and Doom with a Sense of Humor” or “A Beacon in the Smog” I can't figure out which tag line of theirs I like better…and no I'm not reviewing just because it'd be nice for them to return the favor, it's all altruism right now, baby.) Originally published in 2007, it's packed with no-nonsense tips on how to start and get through your day a little greener. Even a crusty old broad like me who has “picked all the low hanging fruit” of environmental tips out there was able to find some peaches in this quick (and very funny!) read. Even came across a few “oopsies” that I'll be getting into in later posts once I get my eco-wagon back on the tracks. And even if you don't have time for another book on your nightstand, check out their daily dispatches at grist.org.

As I continue to spend my days “letting go”, today I finally decided it was time to give up the ghost that the apartment handyman was going to stop by and fix the broken sprinkler heads. A quick trip to Lowe’s (okay, 2 quick trips… I need to learn how to measure things before I head out of the house) and I was able to replace the broken and the missing sprinkler heads all by myself. I was also even able to adjust them properly so that they’re not shooting at the sidewalk or into the apartment windows. Sometimes simplicity is just getting off your butt and getting the job done on your own. My only regret that I was letting the broken sprinklers waste so much water for so long…but now I know, that when the World’s Worst Gardeners steal/destroy these new sprinkler heads, that it takes only $3, 5 minutes and a wrench to fix the problem.

Simplicity Project of the Day: Make Your Own Candles, the Easy Way

As anyone who knows me can attest, I am chemically sensitive to pretty much everything, but nothing so much as when I come within 20 yards of a scented candle. (and those of you with more than 50 of said scented candles in your abode, prepare to be mocked heartily by me, from your front porch.) It probably stems from the fact that scented candles were one of the initial triggers to my chemical sensitivity problems, way back in the salad days of 1993, having to work the register at Deluca’s on Charles Street in Boston next to a candle display that I’m pretty sure no one ever patronized (then again it is rumored that Deluca’s had some, let’s say “connections”, so I don’t think it really mattered what did or did not get sold). But, long story short (too late) I enjoy candles as much as the next gal, but it’s pretty limited in terms of eco-friendly, non-toxic, non-petroleum based and inexpensive options. So I developed my own solution by recycling the old aluminum tea light cups from a batch of Ikea paraffin candles, prying out the wick holders, cutting new wicks (and rethreading) from hemp twine, and then ordering a pound of beeswax pellets to fill the cups up. Sure, you can buy a big block of beeswax for slightly cheaper, but melting it down or chopping it up gets messy and time consuming. This way, you can make the candles as you go and even reuse the same cups if need be.

So I’ve been neglecting my blog updating lately, but not without good reason, I’ve either been working or I’ve been doing little projects around the apartment to help make life a little more simplified. Nothing too involved, and yes, I am that person who is crazy enough to seam rip open the bottom of a shower curtain liner to soak the plastic strip inside in hydrogen peroxide to bleach out the red tide disease growing in there rather than go out and buy a whole new one. There, so I saved $6. Who’s the crazy one now? But that’s the gist of most of the little projects: taking some silly problem (like red algae) and trying to come up with a solution using what I have on hand to fix it. Would it have been easier to throw a new shower curtain liner in the cart next time I went to Target? Possibly. (Remembering to actually do so might not be so easy…) But the feeling that I know how to fix this problem makes me feel kinda good too. Waiting for a friend to finally remember to bring me a step ladder could take another 6 months, while dragging the coffee table out to the stoop to stand on accomplishes the same thing in seconds. Ditto with getting the building handyman to come by to cover up the greasy ceiling vent over my stove… the piece of aluminum foil I attached may make Martha Stewart roll her eyes, but at least I don’t have fan belt oil dripping in my pasta water anymore. I’ve put too much stuff off on my ‘to-do’ list because I’m waiting for the right tool to magically appear or the moment when I can justify the expense for the quick fix. I’m learning now that with a little patience and a few moments thinking about the problem creatively, I can do it myself for a fraction of the cost.

This homesteading thing is going pretty well—after being out of town for 11 days and just allowing the crops to get watered by the sprinklers, look at this! I made lettuce! (see it there, it's on the far left) Snap peas are coming up and the tomato plant is about 5 times the size it was when I left. I could get used to this lazy gardener thing.

Kindred Spirit Series

Thought I would start a new blog series here about people I come across out there in the that I can totally relate to. So without further ado, please welcome the KINDRED SPIRIT SERIES. Our inaugural spirit is Jenna Woginrich, author of Made from Scratch: Discovering the Pleasures of a Handmade Life, a great little book about how anyone can homestead, regardless of where you live. Jenna wrote the book while living in apartment in Idaho and beginning her journey into homesteading by accumulating chickens, sled dogs, honey bees and a love for heritage music and instruments. She now apparently lives in Vermont and blogs from her new home The Cold Antler Farm. As someone who always wanted their own sheep and bees, Jenna’s story makes me realize that a connection to traditional ways is not impossible, no matter what your ZIP code is, what your job is, and no matter how much technological and sensory overload invades our lives.

Simple solutions to simple problems

Couple cool realizations this week, all simple, healthy and proven effective!
• After trying a bunch of times to get rid of several years of calcited water on an antique piece of Spode China, after scrubbing and scrubbing, to no avail, just simply submerging it in a bath of vinegar for less than 12 hours, the residue wiped right off. (Saw the same cup and saucer on eBay for $32!)
• Inspiration struck while feeling “facially congested” tonight: My pores feel so stuffed up, that my forehead is literally lumpy! Knowing that sugar is a great facial scrub, I mixed it with about 2 tsps of Dr. Bronner’s soap and made a nice paste to scrub the dead skin away and open the pores. I don’t know why more facialists don’t use sugar in their treatments, your skin never felt so soft!
• Another beauty tip—adding a teaspoon (or two) of olive oil makes any body, hand or foot lotion even better. One use and I already have smoother skin.
• I hate, hate, HATE, cleaning my bathtub—doing the dishes used to be my least favorite chore, but I’ve learned to enjoy the Zen-ness of dishwashing and there’s also the fact that it is a productive chore—you start with dirty dishes, you end with clean dishes. With the darn bathtub, it just never seems to get fully clean, unless you start with all new tiles. So after ripping out the old crusty black grout, I wondered what the best way to keep the new grout looking white and clean. The answer was so simple and there all along: I’ve been a tub squeegee-er for years, but everyone knows that squeegees get most of the water, but not all of the water. The solution, squeegee first, then wipe down with an old towel. So easy, why didn’t I think of it years ago?

12 Resolutions May: That is not a sign of a healthy lawn.

We’ve been doing our own water conservation here at the Burbank bungalow—seems the reason our front lawn has turned to dried hay was my neighbor deciding the sprinkler timer needed to be unplugged without realizing what it was or without telling anyone that she had done so. So, while we’ve conserved some water (and her electric bill—[so she claims]) we’ve got a dead and crispy lawn that probably isn’t coming back this year. Finally realizing that the sprinklers weren’t on at all does have an added water conservation benefit: now I’m in charge, for the time being, of watering the lawn. The timer can’t decide to take the day off because it’s raining like I can (which believe it or not, it’s actually raining today. In May. In L.A. OMG, it actually just THUNDERED as I typed that!). It also called to light the fact that we were missing a sprinkler head and had created essentially a geyser that bypassed even the corner of the lawn and drained directly into the street. I was also able to redirect the sprinkler heads so they’re pointing We’ve got a little dribbling problem at one of the sprinkler turn-on valves, but it’s a work in progress people.

7 Days 'til Earth Day

With Earth Day 2008 just a week away, I’m trying my darndest to come up with some new and exciting links for the occasion. First up: loving this Sierra Club re-imagining of the Rosie the Riveter poster and the links they’ve got on their “We Can Do It!” site.

OCA Report on 1,4-dioxane

A difficult article to read today in the LA Times, but something that shouldn’t be ignored: The issue at hand is the Organic Consumers Association, an independent research group discovered that out of 100 “natural” products tested, 47 of them contained 1,4-dioxane, a compound that the EPA has declared a probable human carcinogen because it causes cancer in lab animals. The compound is not intentionally added to products like soaps and shampoos, but is “a byproduct of a process used to soften harsh detergents”. I got the feeling that it was written out of spite (the whole thing has the tone of “ha ha, look we busted all these so-called natural products.) What’s worse, the products listed in the article are all by reputable companies, companies that fight the good fight and that would have (or should have) known better than to let something like this happen. What’s even worse is that because these companies tout themselves as being so environmentally friendly, they will be scrutinized worse than a public official caught with his pants down.

Seventh Generation has already posted a response to the report on their site.

Dateline: Tuscon, Civano Kids Go Green!

This dispatch out of Tucson, my very own cousin’s residential community Civano has had their elementary school named the “Greenest Grade School in America” by All detergent! Now I’m not the biggest fan of liquid detergents, especially because of the fragrance issue. And their new product Small and Mighty will probably compound the problem (most people use way more than the recommended dose of detergent, which leads to over-perfuming of clothing, with the smaller bottle, extra-concentrated detergent will lead to even more fragrance). BUT…I do applaud their commitment to making an environmental difference (smaller bottles mean less weight for transporting, which means less oil used to transport). All’s contest to find the greenest grade school may just be a publicity stunt, but Civano won $50,000 for their school. What makes them the greenest? Civano collects and recycles rain water, composts anything they can, grows their own organic fruits and veggies, uses solar energy, the school is located within the community so kids can easily and safely walk to and from school, among other solutions. Congrats to cousin Aidan and all his classmates at Civano Elementary! (Photo borrowed from the Civano blog at civano.blogspot.com, courtesy of Simmons B. Bunton from January 2007... couldn't resist this beautiful pic of Civano to illustrate how beautiful it is!)