Go green!

[llcoolvad]

Following istemi and kjc007's lead, I am thinking today about things I already do on the green front, and about ways I can change to be more green. Some of these things are painfully obvious and I'd hope everyone does them already...

Things I already do:

At Home:

• We recycle as much as we can, and what we don't recycle we use. For example, we get at least one or two pre-made meals at a local deli per week, and the plastic trays they come in are great for all kinds of things: pet dishes, small parts storage, storing leftovers (they even have a snap-on lid), etc. So we wash those and stack 'em up and reuse them all the time. When they get oldish (cracked, melted, whatever) they go into recycling.
  
• We keep a "dead-battery" drawer and drop them off at the city yard annually.
  
• I've replaced every bulb I could with compact fluorescents. The only lights that I can't use them for are a couple of overheads that use dimmer switches. Thinking about replacing the switches.
  
• When our landlord had to replace our toilet recently, we bought a 1.6 gal per flush Kohler and had him install that.
  
• I sometimes get plastic bags from the grocery store (I prefer paper because we can recycle our newspapers in them) but I always bring them back to the store and put them in their plastic bag recycling bin. I am considering switching to canvas. Haven't made the leap yet.
  
• I reuse all the paper bags we use for recycleables and returnables. When I finish returning cans at the big crunching machines I bring all the bags back home for the next round. After I bring the recycling to the city yard I bring all the bags back home for the next round, too. I only discard them when they get torn or too dirty. Shaw's has the best paper bags, btw. Nice and big, and more substantial than the other grocery bags.
  
• I use the same drinking cup at home for a couple of days (I rinse it in between). I have three cups that I cycle through all week.
  
• I only run the dishwasher when it's full.
  
• I do most laundry in warm or cold water, and I only run one rinse cycle. I do most of my laundry at night. I do run the dryer, however. We don't have anywhere for a clothesline, inside or out. But I clean the lint trap before every use. And our dryer is only a couple years old and an EnergyStar one.
  
• I limit my time in the shower.
  
• I seal the windows with plastic every winter. If I owned this house, I'd replace the windows because they are really drafty and old. I've experimented with weather stripping, too. The landlord is slowly replacing windows, so maybe this will be solved eventually.
  
• We have our furnace cleaned every year.
  
• Furnace was off until late October this year, and we keep the heat at 68 in the daytime, 66 while we sleep. It's all handled by the thermostat, too, so it's not something we have to remember to do.
  
• I got on the "do not send" list and get very little junk mail. (try starting here) Mom gets a lot, though. She likes it. Sigh.
  
• Recently I canceled a bunch of magazine subscriptions. Who needs 'em? I read stuff online anyway.
  
• My car gets 32mpg, and it's 11 years old. I won't replace it until I have to, and the next car will get even better mpg. I also only drive about 8 miles each way to work. Work locally!
  
• I also get regular tune-ups on my car. This in theory gives me better gas mileage.
  
• I keep my tires inflated properly. Mostly. This in theory ALSO gives me better gas mileage.
  
• When I get a note pad or envelope labels from charities I always use them. I also use scrap paper for lists.
• I never print anything out anymore, unless I need mapquest directions.

At Work:

• I try to bring my lunch to work every day. I have a nylon insulated lunch bag, so I keep an ice pack in there and then don't have to refrigerate my lunch or snacks or anything. I don't have to leave work to eat, saving gas and time. I don't get delivery, again saving gas.
  
• I keep a box under my desk for soda cans/bottles and I return those every couple of weeks.
  
• I always use the recycling bins at work for any paper.
  
• I keep a carousel on my desk of extra ketchup, salt, pepper, other condiments, utensils, etc. that I get from any takeout or delivery. Everyone in my department knows it's there, and takes whatever they need (they also contribute whenever they have leftovers). This way everything stays fresh and nothing goes to waste.

Ways I could improve:

At Home:

• I don't use canvas bags for shopping. Easy solution here.
  
• I go through drive-thru lines a lot. I should just go inside.
  
• I need to explore my "buy local" food options such as localharvest.org, sustainabletable.org, and the U.S. Department of Agriculture.
  
• I also need to skip meat more regularly. We do maybe two meatless dinners per week, we should strive for more.
  
• I need to explore where my money is invested. I have a 401k account and several funds, but I should really research a little more.
  
• I also need to turn off power strips when I'm not using the stuff that's plugged into them. I have been procrastinating about this because I only have two outlets in my entire bedroom, so I have everything plugged in in a complex fashion, and I really need to simplify and make sure I can hit the strips and not turn off my alarm clock!
  
• Everything that I have that requires batteries uses rechargeables except my remotes and the smoke/carbon monoxide detectors. Hmm. Have to see about those. Feel nervous about the detectors.
  
• I use air conditioning in the summer. I can't give it up. I won't give it up! But I have tried to keep it less than frigid the last two summers. And I've been using it strictly in my bedroom (where I also watch tv at night) so it's only cooling one room in my apartment. And I turn it off when I'm not home.
  
• I need to visit mygreenelectronics.org and greenphone.com to find a local drop off for my electronics trash.
  
• I use paper napkins all the time, home and work, and I use paper towels instead of a sponge at home (sponges squick me out). I also like Clorox Wipes for cleaning the bathroom. I don't know what the solution is, here. Rags are an option. They'd squick me out less than sponges. In my defense, I only use the paper towels where you can pick a size. And I always use the smallest size.

At Work:

• I use paper cups at work to drink out of. I usually only use one cup per day, unless I switch beverages. I should buy a couple of plastic or glass cups for work, and bring them home every few days to wash. Hmm.
  
• I use plastic sandwich bags for my lunch. One for the sandwich, one small one for the pickle, one for chips. There's probably a better solution here. Maybe try using biodegradable wax paper for the sandwich, tupperware for the pickle? Gotta include washing resources for the tupperware.
  
• Currently I use plasticware at work. I should keep silverware in my desk drawer and never use plasticware.
  
• I ride the elevator everywhere at work. I have a bad knee, which is my excuse. I could probably manage at least one trip up and down the stairs per day, though.

So how about you? Anything you do that I don't? I rent, so I don't have a garden or composting options. And I can't/won't do expensive things to the house. But suggestions are welcome!

Comments

[p-j-cleary.livejournal.com]

Tupperware makes sandwich boxes that work really well. Those could replace your sandwich bags.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Yes, I recall that years ago I used to use those. Again the problem of the washing, and the having enough on hand in between dishwashing loads. Gotta also include the Mom-factor. Will she embrace or hate? After all, she's the lunch lady.

I will discuss with her. I hate using all the baggies!

[istemi.livejournal.com]

We keep a "dead-battery" drawer and drop them off at the city yard annually.
This is brilliant. I have little piles around the house. After two days I forget if they're good or bad.

I need to explore where my money is invested.
Good idea.

I also need to turn off power strips
Thanks for the reminder.

(sponges squick me out). ... Rags are an option. They'd squick me out less than sponges.

They often squick me too. If you microwave them for two minutes it kills all the germs, but the sponges still feel damp and slimy, and my mind insists they still make my hands smelly. I've been using sponges and throwing them out more frequently. Maybe I could chop them in half.

Rags, I've been meaning to try it. That's another spot where I'd probably do it if I had a big supply of clean rags whenever I needed one. I think Home Depot sells bags of white terrycloth squares.

Other things on the radar:
* Set up a rainbarrel next year for the garden.
* Think about powdered laundry detergent and dishwashing detergent; why pay to ship water? Depends on how it works in my appliances, though.
* Add more weatherstripping to windows.
* Stuff a few holes with insulation. Our house has old-style balloon framing, which means there's a continuous space basement to roof behind the plaster. Most have been closed off, but we discovered a few this week.


Thanks for being a good influence. I'm motivated to be more thoughtful now.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Some people wash out their baggies. Although you probably won't like that option, it does make the sandwich cotnainer idea sound better by comparison!

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

The powdered laundry detergent is a good idea. I hadn't thought of that. It's generally cheaper, too. And I love the idea of the rainbarrel! I probably can't swing that here, but maybe my next place.

And hey, you started it! :-)

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Things I do that you haven't listed:

I buy a lot of things used (books, clothing, cars, my house). I have a house that is below average in size and thus requires less energy, uses fewer materials to maintain, and can hold less stuff. And I was able to do more weatherizing to it, though I'm not replacing my windows. I take a bus to work, but could ride a bike. Almost everything I print goes on the back of used paper--automated process create more half-used paper than I could ever use, so I brought some of the extra home to have a lifetime supply. I love paper! And things in files! So I print too much, at least at home.

I hang my laundry to dry. We turn off the A/C or heat when we're out. If it's frigid or steamy when we get home, well, it feels good to be in front of the vents. We have ceiling fans in both bedrooms and the living rooms which is good for the summer.

I do have cloth grocery sacks now, and sometimes I even remember to use them! I use paper grocery sacks to wrap gifts (which looks okay after I add ribbon and flowers).

I don't buy cocoa grown in such a way as to destroy rainforests (except when I forget). I use the green energy option from my utilities provider and buy a few extra credits.

Things you do that I don't:

I don't recycle most plastic. I recycle only paper, glass, metal, and plastic #1 or #2 containers with narrow mouths. So when my deli containers crack, I toss them.

I only replace lightbulbs as the old ones burn out.

My showers are too long, but at least I don't leave the water running that long while I'm waiting for it to heat up (I try not to get distracted).

I haven't stopped my junk mail. I'm sort of afraid I might want some of it.

I would like to be better at keeping my tires properly inflated.

I don't use rechargeable batteries. They just don't last as long, and I mostly just use them for my alarm clock and smoke detector.

I also should garden and compost more.

**

I think where you invest isn't as important as what you buy or where you work. The money from your investment mostly goes to other fairly random investors.

Could you at least wash the plasticware you use at work? I've been thinking I should bring my own picnicware, but we have no place to wash dishes at work. Still, it's not like there aren't enough plastic bags around to carry them home in.

I'm good with the sponge use, except in the bathroom, but am thinking about carrying around a handkerchief. Might be too squicky, though.

About stairs, is going up easier for than going down or vice versa or do they both suck equally? If one's easier, you might just do that one sometimes.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

I just have a dead battery paper bag (labeled thus), so once it's in the bag, I know it's bad.

I'm okay with sponges ever since I microwaved mine (for one minute) and accidentally left in the microwave for over 24 hours. Normally a sponge that is wet that long gets slimy and smelly, but this still smelled great. So I just throw it in the microwave whenever I finish doing dishes (not once a month or anything, more like once a day).

I have a rain barrel and I really like it.

[kicking-k.livejournal.com]

We have a variety of things we do pretty well on:

We don't have a car. We both cycle to work.
We don't have a tumble-drier (laundry drier). When it's too cold/wet to dry clothes outside, we use a wire airer.
We don't have a dishwasher.
We don't have air conditioning, and we don't turn the heating on much.
We recycle plastic, paper, glass and metal.
We walk to the supermarket, and we take our own bags.
We compost everything we can.
We have energy-saving lightbulbs in most lamps.
We always turn all our appliances off at the plug.

However, it has to be said: most of these things are not worth feeling smug about. We don't WANT a car; it would be expensive and we don't need one. Or a dishwasher (we're a household of two, so it takes no time to do the dishes). Nobody I know of has air conditioning in Britain anyway. We live in a modern, well-insulated house, which is why we don't need the heating. And we have kerbside collection of recyclables.

As for the turning everything off: J is obsessive-compulsive and has recurring fears about electrical fires. That's the real reason we turn things off. He's also very vigilant about saving money, which is a side-bonus of using relatively little electricity.

Things we don't do so well on: plastic pots. We both eat, on average, at least one small pot of yoghurt a day (and J often eats some fromage frais, too) and I often eat cottage cheese for lunch. Or jelly (Jello) in pots for dessert. So I might generate three empty plastic pots in a day. They are not accepted by any recycling depot that I know of in this city.

The answer might be to buy the big pots of yoghurt, but I find if I do that, I let the last portion spoil by mistake. Also, it's not nearly so easy to measure out one portion, and you have to dirty a bowl to put it in, which you then have to wash... J's fromage frais does come in big pots, so it could be worse.

The jelly is kind of stupid, because you ought to be able to buy it in the little squares in a recyclable cardboard box and make it up at home in reusable cups. But I'm vegetarian, and I have yet to come across non-readymade vegetarian jelly. Perhaps it's more difficult to make up than the stuff with gelatine.

My other eco-sin is taking baths. About once a week in winter, I run a full bath. I justify this (probably falsely) because I only wash my hair once every five days or so, so my usual showers are very quick affairs. I really dislike taking showers...

I would love to get a rain barrel for the garden, if I could find one that would fit the limited space (we live in a narrowish row house). This has been such a wet summer that I've hardly watered, though, so it wasn't so useful as it would have been last year.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Yeah, our town takes a lot of plastic (numbers 1-7, which is good) (http://www.cityofmelrose.org/departments/DPW/Recycling/recycling.htm).

I replaced the lightbulbs mostly because I bought a couple of multi-packs -- they were on sale -- and I decided that the old bulbs could hang around for the few lights that can't take the fluorescents.

Going up is much easier on the knee than down (which is a real damned pain, because we get a lot of fire alarms in our building, due to an ATM located in the ground floor of our building. Damned kids pull the alarm in there a LOT. Because my office is on the third floor, I end up having to tromp down five flights of stairs (our first floor is very tall) more than I'd like to, and with a bunch of people all around me all trying to get down, too). You're right, one way would be better than nothing.

And I can definitely bring some silverware to work, I gotta do that soon.

[llcoolvad.livejournal.com]

Interesting! You don't use much heat? Wow. I wish I could say that. Our house is an old drafty Victorian, but even if it were a brand-new place it gets way too cold around here to not need a lot of heat. It's supposed to hit a low of 27 degrees today (-2 celcius); and that's pretty average for the winter. There's usually a couple of cold snaps of 10 degrees or less, and there might be a warm period of around 40 degrees. But from November to the middle of April or so, we're cold!

The summers can be brutally hot and humid, too. I'd be really grumpy without air conditioning. I remember visiting France and the UK in August and I noticed that there was no air conditioning anywhere. I guess you get used to stuff...

Too bad about your plastic containers not being recycled. We recycle those in my town, but it's different everywhere. A few towns over it's probably different.

I've thought about taking the train home, but the commuter rail trains don't run that often and it would just take too long to get back and forth (I work at 10a, and I'd either have to arrive at 9a or 10:30a). I'd still have to get back and forth to the train station, too, and it's about .8 of a mile from my house. My knee just isn't that good, alas. I wouldn't get rid of my car anyway; I like the freedom it gives me too much.

I have GOT to get grocery bags. I need to stop procrastinating!

[kicking-k.livejournal.com]

We do have a pretty mild winter climate - it's 42 (or 6) degrees here at the moment outside, so about equivalent to your warm period. I would say it's neither unusually cold or mild for the time of year - yesterday was milder. I did walk on the lawn barefoot this morning (yeah, stupid) and that was pretty cold underfoot! I expect it'll get a bit colder,

According to the digital thermometer in the sitting room, it's 58 (or 14.5) degrees inside, without any heating (it's 4.20 pm). I suspect that a lot of people would find that a bit cool for their liking. J and I are both fairly warm-blooded people, and we don't like it too warm and stuffy, so it suits us fine.

Some shops and businesses have air conditioning, but it's very rare in a domestic setting in Europe. Just in the last few years, cars have started to have it as an option, but... well... it doesn't really get THAT hot, and it doesn't get humid much here because we're by the sea, so there's generally a breeze.

I remember my mother telling me about American relatives from Dallas visiting my grandparents in the early 80s, and being surprised by the lack of A/C - "What do you do when it's REALLY hot?" It was summer, and in my grandparents' opinion, really hot already.

I don't know why they don't accept plastic tubs here, because they take plastic bottles. It's a pain having to sort them out, because some of them are clearly marked as being exactly the same kind of plastic!

I think it's much harder to stop using a car than not to start (as with so many things). I don't have a driving licence, so I'd still be dependent on someone coming with me even if we had a car - so my incentive to get one isn't that strong, just as my incentive to pass my test isn't strong because we don't have a car anyway...

You would be amazed how much difference it makes if supermarkets start charging for bags. Our local one does - 3 pence for the normal flimsy kind, 9 pence for stronger ones, and (I think) 50p for a reusable tough one. Three pence isn't going to make or mar us, but we never forget the bags any more...

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

Do you have any freebie bags leftover from conferences? Any book bags? Knap sacks? You may already have something around the house you can use. Even if you don't have enough for a whole trip to the grocery store, you can reduce your use of bags and you can start training yourself to remember to bring your bags.

That's what I was doing until my mom just gave me a huge pile of bags she acquired for another purpose but didn't like and replaced.

[livingdeb.livejournal.com]

It does get rather hot in Dallas. The highs are usually in the 90s (32-37C) for at least two months and occasionally over 100, with humidity averaging around 50%.

When I first arrived at college in Boston, the temperature was in the 80s and everyone was complaining about the heat. Everyone but my mom and me (who had come from Dallas). We were glad it was so cool in August and that there was a nice breeze!