Globally Green Living

This is a tough subject if your offices uses styrofoam, completely horrible for the environment cups and you feel helpless in making it change. I understand your grief.

Getting your coworkers to stop using styrofoam cups and bring in a coffee mug from home to use is like telling a smoker to quit smoking. No one’s going to change his or her habit until it becomes import then himself / herself. All I can really say is to change yourself and set a good example.

But while we’re talking about, here’s why using styrofoam cups is just so bad… (more…)

So everywhere keeps telling you to start a compost pile to help lead an environmental life, but how do you start a compost pile??

Want to know - read on… (more…)

Apparently, AMEC is building a plant to blast diapers into diesel fuel. They will be doing this through pyrolysis, which is also known as thermal cracking. The diapers will be heated up and broken down in a closed and oxygen free environment.

That’s a good thing because you wouldn’t want to let the fumes from thousands of diapers being heated to travel too far. Just a days worth of baby diapers is enough to knock you out. I remember saying to my husband, “That can’t be good for you.”

Big Diaper Supply for Fuel

There are plenty of dirty diapers to use in hospitals and they could contribute to the fuel conversion rather than sending the diapers to landfills. 30,000 tonnes of diapers will be initially converted, creating 11,000 tonnes of fuel and costing 50 cents a liter. (according to Canadian Press, Sidhartha Banerjee Mon Nov 19)

Cloth Diapers Versus Disposable

Using cloth diapers would keep more disposables out of landfills, but cloth diapers also require a lot of washing which uses plenty of energy and water. On the other hand, disposables can pollute the clean water that we have left. Cloth still seems the lesser of two evils for the environment, although not everyone has the luxury of a never-ending water supply. If there are no washing machines or Laundromats around, that also makes it challenging to use cloth diapers. The cloth/disposable diaper debate will continue, but it is good to know that some of them will be converted into fuel instead of heading to the dump.

I found this introduction to finding food behind grocery stores brought to you by the Freegan Chef. Also shown here is “Freegan Chef: Episode One” with Roberto Freddi and Niamh Scott showing us how to prepare a vegetarian meal. Their instructions and recipes were well done. It’s a good example of how much food goes to waste.

I thought the video from Patagonia was hilarious . Agent Timmy O’Neill (a famous rock climber and comedian) urges people to recycle their underwear to no avail until he meets the “The Undie Master” who gives him a magic tea made from ancient underwear, which gives him renewed strength and enables him to convince others to recycle. This helps decrease waste which contributes to reducing the effects of global warming.

Patagonia is onto something though and if we all recycled our garments there would be that much less in the landfill. Patagonia’s long-term goal is to take environmental responsibility for everything they make.

They launched their Common Threads Recycling Program in September 2005 but have recently expanded to include fleece garments and cotton tees. Recycling garments has resulted in an energy savings of 76% and a CO2 emissions reduction of 71%.

Besides only using organically grown cotton, Patagonia also uses soda bottles in their fleece garments.

Patagonia’s current campaign is to protect Arctic National Wildlife. Five dollars from each sale of their arctic wildlife shirt goes to Alaska Wilderness League.

“The Arctic Refuge coastal plain is the ecological heart and wildlife oasis of the entire refuge. It is, in the words of the naturalist Peter Matthiessen, ‘the earth’s last sanctuary of the great Ice Age fauna that includes . . . bears, gray wolves and wolverines, musk ox, moose, and, in the summer, the Porcupine River herd of caribou, 120,000 strong.’ Drilling the Arctic Refuge would not solve America’s energy crisis. To the contrary, drilling there would only continue, not reduce, our dependence on fossil fuels.”

–Tom Udall, U.S. Congressman, New Mexico, “A Family Legacy,”
Patagonia Fall 2007 Catalog

I just returned from Europe where American junk food is luxury food and where fast food places do recycle. Yes, it is true, McDonald’s does help the environment abroad. The particular McDonald’s I went to had different receptacles for trash and plastic. There was also a receptacle for used batteries like AAA and AA that are not recyclable. This latter one is what I miss the most in the U.S. I have a problem tossing used batteries in the trash. OK, I admit it, I have a big problem because I have not tossed one in years and I have been known to take them in my luggage when I go to Europe so that I can put them in a proper recycling bin. Lately, I just avoid buying or using gadgets that do not use rechargeable batteries. Yeah for me…

Foreign Mcdonald’s also cater to local taste buds and offer food that is traditional in the place where they operate. Oh, and guess what? You can have beer with your Big Mac or an espresso drink. Actually, beer is one of the drink options for your meal (not on the Happy Mean though! And yes, it’s OK to have a beer when your kid is present, as long as you don’t get too tipsy to drive…). Because McD’s offers local foods, you can find bowls of vegetable soup and more desserts are fruit based. If American McDonald’s were a little bit more like foreign McDonald’s, maybe it would not be such a bad thing to have your kids eat their lunch there every once in a while instead of trying to pack a healthy lunch for them.

However, foreign McDonald’s are more expensive than American ones. Forget about the 99 cent burger and expect to pay a decent price for your burger. And why not? After all, in many countries a larger proportion of people’s income is spent on food purchases and people expect to be fed meals that do not taste like artificially flavored cardboard. I bet if more people were aware of the actual taste (and price) that food is supposed to have, maybe a smaller proportion of food would satisfy them and that would mean that less stress would be put on the environment. Oh, and of course, the law of demand also applies–all other things held constant, and increase in price will cause quantity demanded to go down. Thus, one can save the environment and fight obesity at the same time. What a concept…

Or so it seems. Every time I call someone in Europe I am told of people who are on vacation, many of them at a beach somewhere. Well, I don’t think I will make it to a beach this year, but I still miss it quite a bit. Funny, the way things turn out. When I was a kid and my parents wanted to drive to the beach I was always trying to weasel out of going.

My favorite time at the beach is during the low tide when you have the baby waves come crawling through the sand trying to reach your feet. The sound of the ocean is also fabulous and rather relaxing. And the view, of course, is dazzling. You cannot feel blue after contemplating the blue ocean, can you???

OK, you got me. Sometimes going to the beach is no fun because it is dirty! Courtesy of the previous visitors…

I always enjoy watching the above commercial. I think that it clearly states the idea that being alive is not a neutral activity. Therefore, our goal should be to mostly do well with our resources. This means that when we shop, cook, work, etc. we need to think about the whole picture instead of just that particular moment in time. That means, also think about where the item came from, what you’re going to do with it after you consume it, and what will happen to it after it leaves your hands.

For example, the whole debate between plastic bags and paper bags. Which one is better? Some extremists say neither because plastic bags use up resources and create trash and paper bags kill trees. So what do these people say is the alternative? Reusable cloth bags, of course! And if you can get one of those designer cloth bags, then even better…

Let’s not be so radical. Yes, there are things that you can use a cloth bag for but there are others when that is not really practical. I am not going to wrap a piece of meat around a cloth bag, I’d rather use plastic because it is safer and overall cleaner. But let’s also realize that there are different types of plastic. When I lived in Europe, most grocery stores would carry bags that were biodegradable. That meant that if those bags ended up in a landfill, instead of lasting forever, they would eventually decompose within a few months or years. The trick with some plastic materials is that they come from products derived from oil, but there are some plastics that can be made from vegetable sources like corn, although, as you may know, corn has some environmental issues that we’ll discuss sometime in the future.

For many things, I prefer to use paper. I don’t really mind that trees are used to make those bags because you know what? Trees are a sustainable resource and those bags eventually decompose and produce soil organic matter to help other trees and plants grow.

Then there are cloth bags. They also come from trees if they are made of cotton, linen, bamboo, etc. But they can be washed and reused. But don’t forget that many crops require pesticides and fertilizers in order to be mass produced so that you and I can buy them at low prices. And when you wash the bags you are also using detergents (some of which are high in phosphorus) and water, which end up going down the drain as effluent that is partially processed and eventually reaches a river or the ocean. Many times, some of the effluent is very reach in nutrients, which may cause algae blooms and other problems in water bodies.

After you’ve read all this you may just want to scream and throw your hands up in the air like the monk in the video. But don’t despair. The solution is to find a good middle ground and be responsible about your choices because nothing you get is ever perfect, thus you must compromise. So what do I do?

Plastic bags: I usually try to minimize my use of plastic bags but if I go to a store that uses plastic bags I sometimes either take a bag myself, choose paper bags, take the items in my hand if they’re not that many, or if I end up with the plastic bag, I collect it at home and drop it off at a local grocery store, since many of them have collection bins to recycle plastic bags–of course, you must sort the bags, so that they fit the profile that the store recycles.

Paper bags: For certain items, a paper bag does the trick and I really like them because they are from renewable resources and they readily decompose. If you have a composting heap or bin, paper bags are a great way to add fiber materials to it, which prevent other greener materials from stinking as they decompose.

Cloth bags: Ideally, if you really need a bag, you want to use reusable bags and for that cloth bags are just great. Be on the lookout for craft shops or fairs where you can find bags that are cute and by purchasing them you are helping preserve the art of sowing at home. Some stores also have their own cloth bags that you are encouraged to reuse–think Trader Joe’s or Barnes and Noble. I particularly love my B&N bag: you can hold it on your hand or over your shoulder; it holds tons of stuff; it is rather sturdy; and once folded it occupies very little room in your car or luggage. Whenever I travel, my B&N bag is always with me to carry magazines or extra stuff on my return.

So the whole point that I want to send across to you is that you should think before you shop for anything! And don’t forget that reducing consumption is better than reusing an item and reusing, in turn, is better than recycling. And just about anything is better than trashing and item that is going to stick around till after the next millennium!!!

Is junk mail sorter. It’s not a very rewarding job. In terms of work, it seems like it’s a farming job because there is always something to do. In terms of satisfaction, I’d say it’s like the fight on terrorism: you know you’ve succeeded if nobody has stolen your identity and caused havoc on your credit report.

I have set up my credit report so that access to it is restricted, that is, banks can’t just request it all the time to send me credit card offers. So the only banks allowed to send me mail are the banks that I do business with. But still I am busy because DH cares nothing about junk mail sorting, thus I must take care of his mail as well.

The U.S.’ unemployment rate has been less than 5% for quite some time now. This 5% is a magical number because it used to be considered unachievable. Now, however, it has become something normal. But just think of all the trash that is created such that a low unemployment rate can prevail. Think about all the junk mail that is issued because we toss most of it, so companies address that problem by sending more, so that the probability that you will open a credit card offer will increase. Yes, that increases employment but it also depletes our energy and natural resources.

For example, think of all those little plastic mock credit cards that say “Your name here.” What inputs were used to create them? Oil, labor, machinery, etc. Also consider that they were issued for the trash because they are perfectly worthless. Well, not entirely, since your choice to get a credit card might depend on how stylish or cool you perceive that little piece of plastic. After all, it has nothing to do with whether you need the additional liability of having another credit card. But the point is that maybe we should all let our banks know that it’s not OK to clutter our mailboxes with worthless pieces of plastic.

Many years ago I remember watching an interview of the philosopher Agostinho da Silva where he said that altruism contains a hint of selfishness because when we do good things it makes us feel good. Last year when I was walking Alfred (the cutest pug ever, as evidenced above) one of my neighbors thanked me for picking up after Alfred. Apparently, I’m the only one who does it.

A pooper scooper is a wonderful thing if you ask me. In the beginning I was able to procrastinate and occasionally not take it on our walks; but now, if I forget it, I have to go back home to get it because I feel really guilty if I don’t pick up my dog’s poop. And so it has become a constant companion object every time Alfred and I venture into the great outdoors. And it makes me feel so much better…

Yesterday evening, I thought the catch of the day would be the abandoned computer but it turns out that there are always other fish in the sea. For example a not-so-shabby-looking grill… People, people you can do better than just leaving stuff on the curb. For starters, you can give a call to your local Salvation Army and they’ll gladly haul some of your items.Oh yah, and if you get a receiptfrom them, you can reduce your tax liability. Or you can also post your item on your local Freecycle list. Go to http://www.freecycle.org to find out how to join your local Yahoo! group. One of your local neighbors will quickly take the items off your hands and you both win!

Tuesday is trash day around here, which means that by Monday evening our neighborhood is packed with bags of trash and piles of stuff that is not as trashy. OK, maybe the whole lot is just rather trashy but there are certain things that don’t really belong on the curb… Take this week’s catch, which has been sitting there, in its best behavior, for a few days now through rain and sunshine. Yes, today’s catch is a computer. Granted that it’s an old one, but it’s still a computer. Oh, and no, this isn’t the first one I have seen around here

It puzzles me that people just decide to trash a computer without first considering giving it away. Yes, I know, maybe it’s broken or too slow to work but still, is this an adequate item for the trash? In my opinion, it is not. First of all, and let me just state the obvious!, it contains someone’s personal data. And if their dumb enough to leave the computer on the curb, I bet they’re dumb enough to not have deleted the data. Oh, you know, reformat the hard-drive. Of course that would still not totally erase all the data, but it would be better than nothing, but I digress…

Then there’s the issue of biodegradability. A computer is not exactly biodegradable. So it is likely that it is going to stick around for a few thousand years. Imagine those future archaeologists, how happy they will be when they find this device that contains several documents that you wrote. Important things, such as your paper for English class, your math assignments and your bank statements. Clearly, you did future generations a great deal of good by sending it to the landfill.

Or did you? If the elements do not treat it kindly, that little computer may just start to “rot.” I wonder if there is anything in there that could leach through the landfill into some underground water. Luckily, if the water is underground, it’s not navigable and thus the Clean Water Act does not apply. Hence, we may live happily ever after because nothing bad can ever come out of it…