One Woman's Attempt to Go "Green"

Been slacking a little, but...

2009-02-27T10:13:00.000-05:00

I think I've convinced my mom to get a home energy audit! (She'll probably call up the utility company to see if they can send someone out to do it for free for her, and if they don't do that, she may hire a professional.) This makes me very happy because my mom has a nice, roomy house (the one I grew up in :) ) with incredibly high heating bills, that is always COLD. Obviously, energy is leaking out of the house--probably through drafty windows and doors. It's an old house.

So, maybe I've gotten Mom on her way toward having less painful heating bills, and helping the environment at the same time.

Home energy audits are very important. Unfortunately, my husband and I live in an apartment where we have no control over the heat (or the heating bill). Caulking up our windows would have no purpose, since the place is warm enough already even with the drafts--and even with our air conditioners still in the windows from the summer, uncovered. We've thought about getting covers for them, but the reality is that it just doesn't get that cold in the apartment (though maybe we should get the covers just to protect the darn things? I don't know).

2009-01-19T15:26:00.000-05:00

Things that have happened since my last entry:

I got my hands on How to Reduce Your Carbon Footprint: 365 Simple Ways to Save Energy, Resources, and Money by Joanna Yarrow. I've mainly used it for work so far, but it's got a lot of really interesting statistics. It's got good suggestions in it. A lot of the same ideas from The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook were reinforced in my brain by Yarrow's book, and there were a lot more tips about small things one can do at home than there were in Carbon Buster's, which has more about things like solar panels and hybrid cars. It's also a really, really quick (and fairly entertaining) read.

I bought 2 of those tiny "For Dummies" books at Target ($1 each--why not?): "Green Living" and "Green Building," I think. Not much info in either that was new to me, but still worth picking up, if only for the fun of being able to show them to my boss! I think I did find 1 or 2 good tidbits for use in my research.

I started using my Envirosax bag for almost all of my errands, instead of letting stores give me plastic bags. This makes me very happy. My Envirosax bag is the yellow "Flora Bag 3," and it's very cheerful and a really good size for my shopping needs. I got Envirosax bags for my bridesmaids when I got married, and got 1 for myself at the same time. ;) It was definitely a worthwhile investment. I hope they are enjoying theirs, too.

My hubby and I had a good excursion to Whole Foods. We were overwhelmed by the amount of (supposedly) environmentally safe cleaning products, and we have a great book (Homemade: How-to Make Hundreds of Everyday Products Fast, Fresh, and More Naturally) to teach us how to make our own, so we mostly skipped those. I did get some environmentally friendlier dryer sheets, just to give them a try; and we bought bleach-free recycled paper towels and tissues. I also got a Klean Kanteen stainless steel water bottle in the smallest size, so I won't have to keep using paper cups at work.

Due to the aforementioned trip to Whole Foods, my conscience is feeling quite a bit clearer than it had been. Also, the paper towels and tissues did not cost much (if any) more than the kinds we usually buy at the supermarket. I'd been feeling awfully guilty about my paper cup usage, so the stainless steel water bottle is a very good thing. It's lightweight, so I can just throw it in my bag in the morning and again at the end of the day when I leave, and fill it up and keep refilling it at work. Now I want to get a reusable coffee mug with a good cover so I can skip the paper cups for my hot drinks, too.

I've been trying to think of ways to make my lunch less wasteful...I eat yogurt for lunch every day, in individual disposable containers. I use a plastic spoon to eat it. But I am spoiled, and most of the yogurt I like doesn't come in big containers (I like the low-fat Greek yogurt best, in flavors like blueberry and vanilla). If it did, I could just put it in smaller, reusable containers to take to work. We did see some plastic utensils at Whole Foods that were reusable and dishwasher safe, but I guess my head wasn't screwed on right at the time because I just thought "Hey, that's cool," instead of actually considering buying some. *shrug*

The next book I really want is Low Carbon Diet: A 30 Day Program to Lose 5000 Pounds by David Gershon. I will try to have a little patience, though. (Not my strong point!) ;)

And a good link for those who shop online: cooler is a site that you can use to shop on lots of the sites of popular stores, and when you shop through the cooler site, the store you've shopped from will neutralize the carbon emissions from shipping for you. Slight disclaimer: there is some controversy about carbon offsets, which you can find here in the Wikipedia entry. I still think using the cooler site is much better than just doing your shopping and letting the companies get away with no-consequence carbon emissions from shipping, though.

Electricity

2009-01-14T13:54:00.000-05:00

Did you know that plain ol' electricity is one of the worst offenders when it comes to producing carbon emissions? I didn't, at least not until I picked up The Carbon Buster's Home Energy Handbook by Godo Stoyke. My immediate reaction was something along the lines of "Oh, crap." See, I like to think of myself as an earth-loving hippie, not someone who uses lots of carbon-emitting nasties. But...well...oops.

Not that my husband and I use tons of electricity. We've managed to keep our bills pretty low. There is room for improvement, though. First, I sought out some of the "power vampires" in our home. For the uninitiated, a power vampire is a gadget of some sort that uses electricity even when turned off. Stoyke's book has a great list of common offenders, and you can also find them by searching for "power vampires" on Google.

The hubby and I always keep our microwave unplugged when we're not using it. That was a good start, though I've noticed it doesn't usually make the vampire list (maybe because people don't want to mess up their clocks?). Anyway, I've now set things up so we can also unplug the TV and the printer (both common offenders) when we're not using them. I've also got to unplug my cell phone charger later--d'oh! Other unplugging will have to come at a time when I can really get down to business figuring out where all the wires on our power strips go. For example, we can't risk shutting off our cable modem, since we get our phone service through it as well as our Internet; but I'd like to be able to unplug my desktop computer. It will help when I'm able to tell which is which. For now, it's just a tangled-up jumble of wires.

Also, did you know that many electricity providers also offer green power options? Ours, ConEd, even offers a service that's specifically called "Green Power." It's 65% hydroelectric power and 35% wind power, for 1 cent more per Kilowatt hour than ordinary electricity. We decided to take the plunge. You can also get power through them that is completely wind-generated, which we would love to do; but alas, that costs 3 or 4 cents more per kwh, and our electric bills aren't quite low enough for us to be able to afford that yet. ;)

If you're interested, please check with your electricity provider and/or check out the Green Power Locator to see what your options are.

RTTUM #1

2009-01-14T13:49:00.000-05:00

I'm starting up a category that I'm calling RTTUM (Random Things That Upset Me). This is generally for things occurring right now that seem to clash completely with my (and others') efforts to do right by the environment. Please feel free to comment and add your own!

Without further ado, RTTUM #1:

Dunkin' Donuts still uses styrofoam cups. WTF?!

What the heck is this about, anyway?

2009-01-14T13:40:00.000-05:00

I've started this blog because I started a research project for my workplace recently about how to reduce one's carbon footprint, and have since become slightly obsessed with cutting my carbon footprint and doing other environmentally friendly things. I plan to keep track of the changes I make here, and post links to whatever interesting and informative sites I can find.

Links to start with: LIME (Healthy Living with a Twist) has lots of great tips. I especially enjoyed the article "Top 10 Ways to Be Green." I'm not into yoga (at least, not for the time being) and I'm not a vegetarian (nor do I ever plan to be--I've been there and done that, and my body didn't like it at all!), so some of the site is just not on my radar; but the "Green Home," "Planet," and "Live the Change" sections are really interesting to me.

One Woman's Attempt to Go "Green"

More home energy audit links

Been slacking a little, but...

Electricity

RTTUM #1

What the heck is this about, anyway?