Friday, July 18th, 2008
Sometimes recycling things takes a little work, but thankfully a little effort can go a long way. Every week in the summer time, I play softball. The captain of the team brings a cooler of ice cold bottled water to the game, bless him. Unfortunately, there are only trash cans near the softball fields. For the past couple weeks, I have started collecting the empty water bottles and bringing them home to put in our recycling bin, which the town picks up. Except for my teammates trying to move my collection of bottles to the trash barrels, last week I had to intercept two of my teammates who had kindly picked up the bottles to throw away, this has been really easy. I load a dozen or so empty bottles More…
Monday, June 16th, 2008
How many books are on your bookshelf?
Of those, how many have you read?
Who cares.
How many do you plan to read?
Who cares.
How many do you plan to read, and then go back and read or reference again after that? Those are the ones that I think are probably worth buying. The rest you probably could have gotten from the library and been just as happy.
Yep, the library. Remember that place More…
Wednesday, June 11th, 2008
Got an electric stove? I do, unfortunately.
I hate the thing — mostly because when I turn it off, it doesn’t cool off. Not for a few minutes anyway. Way inefficient.
But I’ve recently realized I can at least make the most of that annoying electric-stove characteristic by shutting it down a little early and riding the heat wave home to the finish line.
Tonight’s noodle soup, for example, required holding the soup at a boil for 3 minutes after More…
Sunday, June 8th, 2008
Ahhh, “reduce” and “reuse” — the poor stepchildren of “recycle.” Truth is, the grand green triumverate starts with “reduce” and “reuse” for a reason.
Recycling is nice, I suppose, if you’ve absolutely got to use and dispose of something. But the recycling process still uses up a lot of energy — and it’s nearly impossible to say how efficient the process is in More…
Saturday, May 31st, 2008
Bikes are on the rise around the world, according to a recent article on OneWorld.net. (I should know — I edited it.)
Some 130 million bikes were produced worldwide in 2007 — more than double the number of cars rolling off assembly lines (52 million). Bike production took off in the 1970s, and after a brief dip, has been soaring since 2001.
So, why don’t you hop on and get with the cool kids. It saves gas, which saves money and reduces your CO2 emissions. It’s healthy for the body and, More…
Tuesday, May 27th, 2008
Think of all the energy that goes into producing new clothes. Especially nowadays, when most of the clothes we buy in the Gap or Old Navy are made in Indonesia, Malaysia, Madagascar, Malawi, China, India, Bangladesh, Philippines, Taiwan, Nepal… you get my point.
Consider the land and energy needed to grow the cotton or whatever else. Then the harvesting and transporting of that cotton to a factory, where it is made into cloth. Then the transporting of the cloth to More…
Sunday, May 25th, 2008
Can’t afford a hybrid car but want to do your part against climate change? U. Chicago researchers have determined that eating 20 percent less meat is climatically equivalent to switching to a hybrid car. That’s because it’s incredibly energy-intensive to raise cows, chickens, and other animal-meat products. Those animals also require lots of land, which means forest clearing. And don’t forget about More…
Wednesday, April 30th, 2008
Replacing your regular “disposable” alkaline batteries with rechargeable ones can make a big differences to both the environment and your wallet. While the initial cost is considerably higher, the life time costs work out in your favor.
As a parent of two preschoolers, I am constantly replacing batteries in toys. Even though we have lots of battery free toys (my preferred type), some of my kids favorites do require batteries such as the mini-electric keyboard and various cars, trucks and flashlights. To minimize the impact of these toys, I have made a huge effort to switch to rechargeable batteries. So, how much money does it save in the long run? More…
Sunday, February 10th, 2008
Have you ever thought about how much energy it takes to get things to the store before you buy them? A lot of thought is going into that kind of thing and there is a term for it, embodied energy. Now lets apply that thinking to that morning fix so many of us have every day, our morning coffee, tea or caffeinated soda. Let’s compare drinking a pot of tea versus 24 ounces of soda every day.
I weighed a couple items around my house to get a start:
- 10 tea bags weighs 1 oz (30g)
- 15 sweetner packets (Splenda) weighs 3/4 oz (20g)
- 24 oz soda in plastic bottle weighs 1lb 10 1/8 oz (739g)
Using 2 tea bags and 3 bags of sweetener for a pot of tea, which is what we use in my house, and a pot a day for a year we end up with 8 lbs per year. Figuring that tea travels 1,500 miles to get to the store via a semi-truck with a 231,800 pound miles per gallon, that works out to 0.052 gallons per pot a day habit per year. Now let’s switch glasses to soda. More…
Saturday, February 9th, 2008
For those of you who are parents of young kids, or those that 
are looking to give a child a gift, check your attic before going to that mega store to buy some new mass produced molded plastic or electronic toy.
While visiting my in-laws this weekend with my 3 year old twins, it amazed me that the favorite new toy was something my wife played with as a kid 30 years ago. They have lots of new toys (i.e. those made in the past year or two) at their grand parents to play with as well as a bunch of toys from my wife and her sibblings’ childhood. Most of their favorite toys are not the new ones, but rather the well used ones. Maybe it is that only the favorite toys, like a Fisher Price School House or Seasame Street block, were selected to be stored for later use . Maybe it is that young kids aren’t exposed to as much mega media advertisement and so aren’t fixated on having the latest thing on TV.
Whatever the reason is, by choosing a used toy over buying a new one, you’ll help save the environment by reusing something that has already been produced, save a little money and make a little one very happy. If it has been in your closet or basement for a while, clean it well before making your favorite bundle of joy more joyful.
The photo of the tug boat is the actual toy that my kids have been playing with since arriving at their grand parents this weekend.
