Popular Support

I have begun to see significant support from the rest of the family...most notably, a greater variety of items in the recycling bin, that I did not put there! I also got a thoughful note (ok, a post-it note) from Philip informing me about 

http://www.terracycle.net/

This is a site which unites "brigades" to recycle everything from power bar wrappers to printer ink cartridges for cash back, which is of great interest  for "greenies".

Nov 22:  Notable increases to recycling bin
Nov 23:  Re-used cardboard for chicken coop floor
Nov 24:  Packed purchases in oversized purse, and not bags 

Freecycling! Whee!!!

Gotta love Freecycle.org! While one does tend to accumulate a few more items that take up valuable house space (most notably in our case a 60 gallon aquarium and a ping pong table),  I really came to appreciate the value of this terrific resource when helping collect items for my son's Eagle Project--The San Carlos Belmont Emergency Supply Depot. The local emergency response officials asked for thousands of dollars of equipment including tools, fancy ladders, furniture, batteries, and hard hats. Within only 6 weeks, local Freecyclers had contributed over $1,000 worth of materials!  Now, before buying something I need, I post a request on Freecycle...or just wait until it shows up!  Yesterday I got a Canon printer (in questionable working order) and 8 ink cartridges.  Even if I can't use the printer for X, I will use the ink and parts for my other Canon printer!  Thanks Freecyclers!



Nov 21:  Freecycle Printer Ink

Are These Clothes Really Dirty?

I am realizing that many of the changes that I am implementing involve "changing my mind" as much as changing my behaviors.  For example, it has taken me a couple of weeks to get my head into the reusing of plastic water bottles, even though I am washing the caps in the dishwasher.  So the recent Real Simple magazine article on how often clothing items should be washed, validated a few changes that I had already been thinking about.  I manged to convince myself that my sweatshirts and hoodies really don't need to be washed that often.  (I have already been hanging many articles of clothing out to air dry). And, if I stop wiping my hands off on my jeans, they will actually last for two or three wears.  As for the stinky adolescent boys in the house...everything they touch goes into the laundry basket!

The When-to-Wash-It Handbook: Winter Edition Real Simple


Nov 20:  Re-Evaluated my Laundry

Eating the Apple All the Way Down to the Stem

This week called for more vigilance in  keeping my eyes peeled for "green" opportunities, a few of which presented themselves:

I have been in the habit of using three towels when I go to the gym: one for a workout towel, one for me, and one for my long wet hair.  I cut the workout towel to a small hand-towel and limited myself to one for the shower.  I went to Trader Joe's and was standing in the checkout line when I realized that my reusable grocery bags were in the car.  I alerted the checkout guy that I would be"right back" ...and I was! 

The 6th-graders were at Outdoor Education Camp all week.  Although, I had a vague recollection of what the answer was already from former experience with such campers, I asked the boys if I could toss my apple core out the window into the forest.  NO!!!  "Non-indigenous apple trees might grow!" "A fox might come and eat it and want more!"  (I think they got the message.) So I ate it all the way down to the stem...and they were impressed.




Nov 17:  Used only one towel at the gym in shower
Nov 18:  Ran back to car from checkout  line to get my reusable grocery bags
Nov 19:  Per Outdoor Ed  youths, ate entire apple core

Getting Creative

The past few days it has been a "stretch" to come up with NEW "green things" so I have been conscious about keeping my eyes open for opportunities.  This tactic has been quite fruitful as I have noticed  things that I have been seeing for a decade or more, without thinking about it. First thing this morning I submitted a note in the "Comments" box to the gym I belong to about all of the thousands of wax-covered paper cups that are used once and then put in the trash (not recycled).  I don't even know if they are recyclable, but I thought that I needed to mention it to the club, at least.  Yesterday, I packed X a bag lunch using parchment paper to wrap the sandwich, cut-up apple, and crackers.

Nov 13:  Cancelled more catalogs (up to 47 canceled now!)
Nov 14 :  Re-used plastic tubs as dog/chicken dishes then recycled
Nov 15:  Packed X's lunch without using plastic bags/wrap
Nov 16:  Complained about paper cup waste at PAC

The Nasty Parts

Why do so many of the "green things" I come up with seem to have a definite "nasty"component? Besides the already-mentioned sorting of the "food-soiled papers" into the composting bins as per the official instructions, there seem to be so many more

On Tuesday, I hauled a 25 lb. bag of  Peet's coffee grounds home to use as soil enrichment for the acid-loving plants.  The black coffee liuquid was squeezig out of the plastic bags by the time I got it home and it was a little drippy.  The bag wasn't looking like it would make it back to the roses (I also had second thoughts about a lot of chickens developing expensive taste in caffeine), so I gingerly shifted the bag into the front yard order, where it promptly split, revealing, not just a mound of dark grounds, but a soggy mass of industrial-size paper filters as well. Needless to say, separating these from the dirt and grounds to ferry them back to the compost heap was not a pleasant task.  

Another questionable accomplishment:  When I was taking my 60 second shower with the low-flow shower heads at the gym, I decided to rinse out my sythetic exercise wear, run it through the swimsuit spinner.  So far so good. However, I neglected to remember that I was actually not going home yet  Leavig a bag of damp clothes in the car would really defeat the purpose, so I was left with only one alternative:  discreeetly arranging my clothing across the front of the dashboard and parking my car in the sun with the sunroof and windows cracked open while I had my hair cut. The eleven-year-olds I picked up later in the day did mention the humidity on the windows, but they would have been horrified and mortified had they seen the source...




Nov 8:  Composted many pumpkins
Nov 9:  Recycled coffee grounds in garden
Nov 10:  Dried rugs in sun
Nov 11:  Asked the gardeners to stop using chemicals on the lawn (chickies taking care of it!)
Nov 12: Hand washed gym clothes in shower

Sitting in the Car in the Rain

With boys over 6 years apart in age I have enjoyed very few opportuntites to "double-up" in terms of driving to schools, lessons, or practices, so when the opportunity does arise I am more than doubly appreciative.  Sunday mornings for the past eight years have meant one thing--an 8:45 AM race up Hwy. 101 to weekly bagpipe lessons/rehearsal with the Prince Charles Pipe Band in South San Francisco, back home again, and then a return trip to pick them up at 11:00. When Philip meet the legal age (and my comfort standards) to drive his brother up on Sundays, it felt like a whole new chapter in my life was going to open. What could I not accomplish with the three hours I had not seen for so long? The restorative Yoga class at 10:00? A hike with the dogs? A new blog!?

Well, that window of opportunity, as it turns out, was only open a very short time (due to extended illness othat prevented piping on Philip's part). But, I had been feeling so good about not having the car making four trips every Sunday, that I decided to bring enough materials to keep busy today (sitting out in the car, in the rain) for 3 hours. Surprisigly, when X staggered out at 11:00, my purse and my car interior (an extension of my purse) were paper napkin- and Jolly Rancher wrapper-free, and, via the wonders of mobile technology, I had deleted 276 old emails from Freecycle.org, 3 backyard chicken groups, and 46 unread editions of a weekly bank stock newsletter that I humor myself by still subscribing to "just in case"...AND, I only drove my gas-sucking SUV hog half as far.  Do I feel good?  Yeah, but I need better ventilation next time.

I have reached the ("duh"-provoking) conclusion that blogging daily, is far more challenging than accomplishing my little "green thing" each day, so I am moing to a new format...the list--for when life gets in the way of the blogging...

Nov 4th  Selected garbage out of bin for recycling
Nov 5th  Hung wet clothes out on line
Nov 6th   Reused water bottles and plastic containers
Nov 7th:  Cut back on driving

Sunny Days Means Hanging Out the Laundry

Beautiful sunny and clear fall weather! 

Was able to compost my jack-'o-lantern the day after Halloween (facilitated by our friendly neighborhood pumpkin-smashers).  At least it did not rain...wet pumpkin is nasty.  The chickens LOVED the pulp and seeds pulverized in the food processor.

Yesterday, I decided to wash the dog beds, but instead of letting them fully dry in the dryer, I took them outside and let them airdry yesterday.  Many people swear by the fresh scent of sun-dried laundry, but with a dog bed it is a little hard to tell...

This morning I took a 60-second shower AND I only used one of the showerhead in our twin-jet powered super shower...going to the gym later anyway.

Behavioral Changes

The objective of this project is to find tiny ways to modify my habits and lifestyle so that ultimately, in the end, there is a significant net improvement in my "footprint", so to speak.  And possibly even in that of my household in general.  As I go through each day, I do find that I am much more conscious of very small things that I can do to alter consumption and disposal habits.   While I am not able/willing to take the extra effort every day, I am hoping that some of them at least will "stick" and become new habits. Here are some of the "green things" I have implemented each day:

Oct 28th:  Went on "catalogchoice.com" an identified 15 more catalogs I receive and cancelled them (bringing the total of cancellations to about 25 and counting!)

Oct 29th:  I went through the pantry and identified old stuff.  Fed some to the chickens, composted some in the "official" compost, and washed for re-use/disposed of the packaging as appropriate.

October 30th:  Cleaned out the fridge and made an actually interesting chicken-treat concoction in the food processor. Whole wheat crackers, prunes, pork, chopped greens, apple and tomato.  It looked and smelled like something one could use to stuff a roasted chicken!

October 31st:  Made a point of turning off the computers when I knew I was going to be out all day, and before bed.

Baby Steps Still Count...

As one of our neighbors recently pointed out, we are working for the garbage company now.  We received THREE new huge receptacles last week, each of which came with a page-long description of "do's" and "don'ts"  It is much trickier now, as "food soiled trash" and meat has to go in the "official" compost bin, (which is separate from my garden compost bin, where I do not compost these items), while other paper and clean recyclables go in another bin, while regular "trash" goes in another.  That means that before it leaves the kitchen, there are FOUR separate trash categories!  So not to be negative on this new system, I dug through the general garbage on Monday and extracted a small number of food-soiled items (i.e. pizza box)  to populate the official compost bin. Nasty. (Must find a way to do this at the site of origin. )

Other daily "green things" were less unpleasant and not difficult at all.  Yesterday, I relocated all of the plastic spoons from frozen yogurts that I have een stockpiling in my car and washed them for re-use in school lunch bags.  And today, I introduced a second waste paperbasket in my office for "recyclables".    

More Changes...Hope No One Notices

I am vigilant about daily opportunities to identify my "green" thing, but also wary of potential pitfalls.  It seems that most of the time, the green alternative tends to have a sight disadvantage attached. 

For example, last week I unplugged a rarely-watched TV and its accoutrements only to discover that it would take 25 minutes to re-boot the cable box when I wanted to watch it!  Friday, I walked the dogs (three) to the dog park instead of driving and found myself in the "downward dog" position all the way down and back, from the ensuing entanglements.  (Note to self: must find the double-dog leash connector.)   Saturday, I decided to leave my car parked in the 20-minute zone outside the Post Office to dash the 6 blocks up the street for a few more errands.  Thirty minutes later I was still four blocks away when I noticed the Parking Meter Car ahead of me, edging along towards my car.  The "dash" turned into an all-out sprint... 

Yesterday's act of greeness carries the highest potential risk of all:  I TURNED DOWN THE TEMPERATURE ON OUR WATER HEATERS A NOTCH!  I am on tenterhooks waiting for the cries of outrage echoing from the household shower stalls.  Or will the boys even notice?

Canceling Catalogs

So on Thursday, instead of driving three dogs down to the dog park, we walked down!  Better for everyone! 

Yesterday, I actually acted on a great idea I have had before...in fact for years I am ashamed to admit. 

It's catalog season, and over the years I have managed to get on the mailing list for an alarming number.  Last week, I stockpiled them all and yesterday spent 10 minutes calling up about 12 companies to take my name off of their lists!  Then I recycled the catalogs---hopefully for the last time!  

Stay tuned for today's "Green Thing"!  

Re-using Things

I have difficulty with the idea of "germs".  I mean they are everywhere, as anyone who has a grade-schooler knows, and they definitely can take it out of you in terms of colds and flu and tummy-troubles.  So how many times can you use a paper napkin?  If it has only had a mouth wiped on it once at dinner and it retains integrity as a napkin, can the same person use it for breakfast?  When I lived in France, people I used to live with used the same cloth napkins for 4 or 5 days, and somehow (perhaps because the grease stains are less visible), it did not seem that bad.  I just don't know, but I do not really like the idea...

I am sure there are other things, plastic water bottles for example.  I still have two cases in storage room, but have not purchased any more yet (a challenge for another day).  So today I refilled the three of them that I usually drink in a day and put them back in the fridge, noting that I used water and a dishtowel to clean off the tops.  What other items can I re-use?              
  

Errands On Bike; Physical Difficulty: Easy, Psychological Difficulty: Ouch!

Again I find that trying to squeeze as much as I can into the shortest time possible is the besetting fault which hampers a number of my efforts at personal improvement. 

Today, my son "X"*, who has procrastinated his monthly free-reading until the last possible moment, announced that he needed to go to the library immediately to select a book.  While my first thought was: "Failure to Plan Ahead On Your Part Does Not Constitute a Emergency on Mine" (a sign that years ago graced the cubicle of a former co-worker of mine), after some reflection I recognized the inherent "Green Opportunity".

Donning our helmets to make the 0.5 mile (or less) trek  to the local library, I could not help but reckon up the substantial 30 minute difference between going in the car, and going by bike--a realization which I quickly tried to suppress.  After the successful acquisition of a Newberry  Award-winning book with less than 200 pages, for which X had already seen the movie (all important factors, given the impending deadline), it occurred to me that we could easily just zip over to the CVS to pick up a prescription that had come in.  Two Birds with One Stone! YES!!!  NOW we are talking!  FUN! I imagined running errands around town by bike on a regular basis...scooting between bank and Post Office and drug store, without having to spend the time to park or negotiate traffic! Just need a bigger rack. And maybe some saddle-bags...

And in the end, I was able to pass on some valuable bike-riding lore to X.  This too required some suppression of Type A tendencies, the reason for which I still sport two capped front teeth, which I broke twice on bikes--the first time attempting to beat my own no-hands record on my Stingray and the second, multi-tasking while riding.

We carefully walked our bikes across the crosswalks, and I made a point to halt at stop signs and to model looking over my shoulder to monitor rush hour traffic.  We decided how and where to best secure our bikes from theft.  

So perhaps I did not quite overcome my "besetting fault", and rather just worked with it and derived multiple benefits from my single "Green Thing" that have the potential to be leveraged into further good things to come.             

*Note to Reader: "X" is actually the nickname that he goes by, and this is not an attempt at literary anonymity, in which case I would likely have used the more traditional "N".

"Type A" Behavior And Fuel Economy

After some deliberation about "Green" actions that did not require leaving the house yesterday, I decided to plug two of the the TVs, cable boxes, and VCRs into a power strip, which I turned off.  Done. Piece of Cake! Today, however, required more soul-searching and challenging certain of my more closely-held values about time-management...

 My teenage son recently observed that I tend to gun the engine in the car and accelerate (up to the speed limit of course) much more rapidly than necessary, then have to apply the brakes as I approach a stop sign or traffic congestion. (He did not quite put it so succinctly.  Actually, it more like this:  

"So how many times a week do you have to fill your car up anyway?"  The rest I will leave to the reader's imagination, but it would not be going too far to imagine a few "duh-uh's" in the course of the discussion.)     

Today, I tried to be conscious of my tendency to try and beat every traffic light and to attempt to maximize the net MPH I can accomplish in my given itinerary. Instead of accelerating to change lanes in the freeway, I hung at close to the speed limit until a spot opened up (it probably took at least 12 seconds more...)  Was it painful?  Well, yes actually it was.  Did it kill me? No. 

So I probably could even do better by leaving earlier and driving slower, but after a lifetime of Type A behavior, that may have to wait for another day...        

My Green Year

After months of steeping and percolating, it's time to turn that intention into action.  The Giant Step that really just takes one second to accomplish.  So here it is...the moment is here...Will she? Will she? ...She will.

"Today and every day I will do one thing to make my life greener."

That's it. It is not so earth-shattering, but it is something I have been test-driving for nine months or so.  I started out just reality-checking. Not every day, but "whenever", and have found enough small things to be done that I think can make a difference.  My thoughts right now are that it does not have to be a huge disruptive, life-changing action, but just a small act that would not be something I would do normally, or that I was already doing.  As small as choosing not to buy that case of plastic water bottles, or buying a new set of recyclable grocery bags for the other cars. Or something bigger...

Of course I have to ask myself, will there be an end-point? A day when I just can't think of anything more I can do? What if my resolve falters?  OK.  So, I will log it just for one year. That is only 365 things to do...not impossible.  I was actually going to launch this back on Earth Day, but "Life" intervened, and there is nothing wrong with October 17th.  In the spirit of that old sixties slogan, "Today is the first day of the rest of the year."   And I know I can rely on like-minded friends and others to help me along the way...

What about "cheating"? What if I am tempted to "count" something that I have actually already done in the "test-drive phase?"  To reduce this temptation, I will disclose a few things that have already happened.

As some people know, I have been keeping backyard chickens, supplementing their chicken kibble with our food scraps, then composting their waste in a stacking bin system.  I let the chickens out to free-range in the garden, where they have eaten all the snails and slugs and many other "pests" as well...So far, so good. I do have to make the rounds at least twice a day with the poop-scooper and rake to collect their offerings and deposit them in the bin. We also have three Labradoodles who similarly free-range in the garden and have eaten my gardening clogs, a gnome, a patio chair cushion and many other useful items as well. One sad truth:  Poop Attracts Flies. Dog-poop+Chicken poop= More Flies.

In the mid-summer, the fly-visitors were increasing in number and one day, when I noticed about twenty at once buzzing around the compost, I hastened to the local garden supply for a relatively benign, non-chemical solution. Bingo! The hanging plastic fly-attractant-filled traps are amazing.  To our horror, our first one was filled within a week.  The boys estimated at least 800-1,000 fly victims. Three more traps followed and were filled just as quickly. It soon became clear that while we had most likely effectively eradicated our original flies, the filth-scented traps were attracting the entire neighborhood's fly population. With that many flies, it can take hours for them all to creep into the filth-chamber, and in the meantime, they hang around and do what flies do.

Jumping forward a few weeks in time...my compost pile is beautiful! I am getting ready to photograph it for the International Compost Photo Competition (which I will be initiating shortly in Finland), and, as I am lovingly sifting through the dark, coffee ground-colored richness, I unearth a fork-full of pale, skin-colored, writhing, maggots.

A quick perusal of the internet reveals that these are not highly desirable "soldier fly maggots"--a favorite chicken treat--and that some permethrin in the compost would take care of them. I do have permethrin in the garage in case of chicken mites, but it is a neurotoxin dangerous to cats, fish, and amphibians (I saw a newt seven years ago in the yard and you never know). This information, and the knowledge of how quickly maggots develop, forced me into immediate alternative action. As I carefully balanced 12 cooking pots of boiling water down the two flights of stairs (multiple trips) to boil the beasties in their lair, I asked myself more questions:  Is this misguided green overkill? Could I put my efforts to better use? What about the gas and water used to boil the water? And then (as my "Master Composter" training tells me), I have basicially ruined the fine biochemical balance of the hot compost, as it will take weeks of turning or a truckload of dry green and brown matter in just the correct proportions to get it going again.

So that leaves me with some open-ended existential questions to contend with as I go along, and my "Green Thing of the Day" to still come up with... 

I respectfully ask the reader for comments, advice, and support.

Thanks!

Kristin