June 14, 2006
Don’t wash out the recycling!
When you hold an item in your hand and think about its connection with the environmental problems you've heard about, use your imagination and think about the parts you can't see: where it came from, and where it's going. That's a mind-shift that politicians haven't made yet, but the most innovative thinkers about sustainability are focused on what they call "cradle to cradle" analysis.
Plastics, for example, are made from petroleum products, fossil fuels. "Fossil," because oil and coal are the remains of forest life in the early days of the planet. That laundry soap bottle used to be ferns and mosses in an ancient landscape. How odd to think that today our use of these ancient resources is threatening our future on earth!
Thinking of the future, here's a simple tip: do not scrub out containers that are going to be recycled. Using quarts of clean water to wash potato salad tubs and cottage cheese cartons is not a net benefit to the planet. Do the bare minimum to ensure that your recycling won't attract pets. A swish in the water you're using to soak a cooking pot is enough. I sometimes toss especially messy containers into the dishwasher on top of everything else, where they take no additional space.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:27 AM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2006
Consciousness about small things
Every day starts with water. No, I don't mean that kind of water. I'm thinking of the first glass of water I drink, and the water I fill the kettle with for my first pot of tea. (I could be content with locally grown food, I think, except that I would still have to have tea, real tea, camellia sinensis.)
When I was first commissioned, in 1988, to write an ecology book, I knew virtually nothing about the subject and my friends were terrified for me. It didn't reassure them to know that I knew I knew very little; they couldn't imagine how I could educate myself enough to write a book. One of the first people to help me was an energy expert in London who invited me to his home to use his library. He offered me coffee, and after filling our cups he took a folded towel that was lying nearby and tucked it around the kettle. (In Britain, electric kettles are a way of life.) "It's a small thing," he said, "But it keeps the water hot for a couple of hours, until we want another cup." He was saving both water and energy, in one simple and habitual action.
To make a good cup of tea one needs freshly drawn water, so I rarely use water left in the kettle. But in the morning I find myself ducking and diving not to waste water. As I run the tap--an old habit, from London days when this was a precaution against leaded pipe joints--I catch the water in a watering can, and I toss the water used to warm the teapot in, too, and any dregs from the kettle. I feel a little silly doing this (it is, after all, a very small thing), but the ritual is a good way to remember the more important point, that I need to treat every material thing that passes through my hands as a resource.
And while the kettle is coming to a boil, I can water my houseplants, blooming geraniums and baby-powder-scented heliotrope.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:09 AM | Comments (0)
November 26, 2005
Lighter online?
I'm hunting for statistics comparing the energy and natural resources used by a purchase online (which many people I meet think, incorrectly, is better for the environment) in a shop. So far, I haven't found any numbers, but this report highlights the problems: "Online Shopping and the Environment". I was amused to be reminded that Santa Claus's transportation is renewable and non-polluting (at least in terms of the air, and global warming).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 9:27 AM | Comments (0)
Black Friday to Green Christmas
I had a call this week from a reporter at the Daily Mail in London who wants to interview me about having an ethical, green Christmas. I laughed at the irony of calling the day after Thanksgiving, usually the last Friday in November, Black Friday. It's the day Christmas shopping supposedly begins, and there are sales to attract people to the big box stores at 5am (in the UK, this kind of thing takes place during the January sales, I think). "US shoppers rush to Black Friday"
The simplest way to have a green Christmas is not to go shopping, but that's hardly useful advice for most of us. We may loathe the commercialism and excess but still love the festivity, the scents and sounds of the season. Over the next week, as I travel, I'll be blogging up some suggestions, and recipes, for having a joyous time without overwhelming expense or pressure--on yourself or on the planet.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:38 AM | Comments (0)
September 16, 2005
Reusable teabags
I've been on the run and didn't make it to the food coop today for the tea tasting. But my marketing assistant Margaux did, and came back with tales of wonderful teas and also a hemp tea bag that you refill with loose tea. It was especially nice because it's open and light, not a drawstring, so I suspect it's very fast-drying. Here's a box of hemp teabags that sound like the ones Margaux bought, and I promise to try to get to the next tasting to report.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:40 PM | Comments (0)
August 12, 2005
Green remodeling
I came across a terrific new book the other day, at a lovely new bookshop called the Stocbridge Bookseller, which has a considerable selection of green titles. The book is called Green Remodeling, Chaging the World One Room at a Time. It's written by a Boulder-based professional green builder David Johnston. This means it's geared more to substantial remodeling projects, the kind you're likely to need a professional for, but there's plenty of advice that can be used by the DIY (Do It Yourself) home remodeler.
My husband David and I are so totally absorbed these days in our publishing business that we don't have big home projects on the immediate horizon, but with this fat guide to hand, even with the few small things we'll want to do this year--some extra insulating, for example--will be easier with this book to hand.
We also want to plant a couple of trees in the autumn, one important way to save energy and increase comfort. Here are some tips from the US Department of Energy.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:43 AM | Comments (0)
July 29, 2005
Freecycle, recycle
I love word-of-mouth, and I start to believe in something when my kids forward it to me. Rachel (16) just sent me this notice about Freecycle, which I may have mentioned before. But it was then at the suggestion of my 40-something brother.
Forwarded:
Hi guys,
my friend showed me this, and I wanted to spread it around, because it's so much better than throwing stuff away, and it's freeeee!!
enjoy and tell your friends!
Forwarded:
My dad showed me this. Its such a good idea!!!!!
And it's even made the BBC--read the UK coverage. Unfortunately, there's no Freecycle group in our area--but writing this has inspired me to figure out whom to contact about getting one started (and techie Rachel can volunteer, or so I hope, to manage the site).
Posted by Karen Christensen at 3:21 PM | Comments (1)
July 19, 2005
Waste not
I just read an article about how much food we waste. According to a BBC study, "the average British household throws out ₤420 of food a year," which apparently means that 33% of the food we buy is wasted.
I've often looked at all the fresh vegetables for sale, things that require peeling and cleaning and cutting up, and wondered how much of what people virtuously buy actually gets eaten--given that almost none of the people I know seem to cook at all. And my own family wastes far more than I like to admit. But it's not so hard to change this pattern, by making a night (or even two) a week the time to come up with a meal based on the oddments in the fridge. I'll continue with some suggestions about summer meals that make good use of bits of cheese, odd vegetables and fruits, and other things that seem to pile up in spite of our best intentions.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:45 AM | Comments (0)
July 14, 2005
Recycling obsession
I'm quite compulsive about recycling, so I findn it hard when I travel. I simply hate throwing apple and banana skins into the waste bin--going to a landfill instead of fertilizing the soil--so there've been many occasions when I've sneaked out of the motel to tuck our scraps under a bush. Second best is flushing: that's what I do with coffee grounds.
But this compulsion got me into one of the most embarrassing experiences of my whole life. We were living, early one spring, in a B&B here in Great Barrington, in between a rental house and the house we bought. We had a kitchenette so we were cooking a little, and I routinely flushed our kitchen scraps. Until the toilet got blocked up. The B&B owner tried everything, without success, and after two days he said he would have to take it apart, looking very unhappy. I'm sure he thought I'd been very bad and flushed some female product.
What he eventually surfaced with, to his surprise and my total chagrin, was a fairly substantial piece of raw cauliflower!
Other embarrassing eco-obsession stories will be gratefull received.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 8:05 PM | Comments (0)
May 7, 2005
An IT manifesto needed
The Armchair Environmentalist is printed on 100% recycled paper, which is a wonderful thing. But as a publisher myself, I know that it isn't just trees we need to think about. Publishing is moving online, and onto computers, and like all information industries we are completely dependent on computers. I haven't had much luck--so far--convincing the wonderful folks focused on ancient forests that another track is also essential.
I was thrilled to read Jonathan Schwartz, CEO of Sun Microsystems, writing about this in his blog last week.
"Friday was also Earth Day. And reading some of the Earth Day PR coming from the big PC companies got me to thinking about how wasteful our industry is. Most of the PC companies made announcements last week that made it easier to throw computers away. And not like I'm going to go inhabit a tree anytime soon, but surely what we should be doing is figuring out ways to stop throwing PC's away. And stop the waste more broadly, vs. making the waste more palatable. We are among the most wasteful industry on the planet. Want proof?
"The average utilization in a datacenter is 15% (what we see is tyipcally lower, but we like to be polite). That implies some 80% of the capital that goes to purchasing computers, 80% of the real estate, and best of all, 80% of the electricity to power and cool the unused systems - is flat out wasted. Greenpeace, where are you? Want to know how to solve at least the tech industry's contribution to the power crisis?"
For specifics, read Jonathan's Blog, which has lots of ideas.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:35 AM | Comments (0)
April 5, 2005
Greener Portland
I'm in Portland, Oregon, a city I've long heard about as a model green community. There's no doubt about that: free tram service downtown is the most obvious sign of this, but the hotel too is greener than usual. It's always bothered me to throw away all the paper that accumulates at conferences, but here I can recycle both paper and my plastic yoghurt tubs, easily in my hotel room. Here's a photo of the recycling bag.
I had to get some printing done and had a funny conversation about recycling with the guy there. He had made up a sign about what to put in the paper bin, copied below, and said, "They just don't get it, why they can't put in chipboard or plastic juice bottles!" Even here, waste separation isn't obvious to everyone.
The sign read:
You hate the environment if you put the following items in the recycle bins:
NCR [no carbon required] paper
Staples
Paper clips
Food
CDs
Window envelopes
Yogurt containers
Plastic
Anything that is sticky
Newspaper
Magazines
Chipboard
Cardboard
Materials that can be recycled!
All clean paper
Non-window envelopes
Post-it notes
Paper packaging (most)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 1:24 PM | Comments (0)
March 30, 2005
Furs for Wildlife
It's a lovely bright day, the first of the days we'll call 'the first day of spring' (spring teases us for months here in the Berkshires). Tom's off to get his bike out, and in a bout of spring cleaning I came across a fur coat I bought at a tag sale 10 years ago, when I first came back to the States from England.
I'm not sure quite what I had in my mind when I bought it, except I liked the colors (black and gold), and I've never worn it. But in the interest of wasting nothing, I was looking for information about cleaning vintage fur coats, and came across this fascinating idea, using old furs as beds for wildlife. So, if I don't end up wearing the coat next winter (or maybe this spring!), it'll be donated to a good cause. Furs for Wildlife
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:02 PM | Comments (0)
March 24, 2005
Easy recycling that really matters
My laptop battery died a few weeks ago and I have been using the old one as a paper weight--couldn't throw it away, but didn't know what to do with it. Then I saw an ad in Organic Style (more about that another day) for the Rechargeable Battery Recycling Corporation. The website has a database of all the places where you can drop off used rechargeables, from phones, PDAs, cordless power tools, etc. But I live in a small town and didn't expect to come up with anything at all. What do you know? A plethora of options, incuding the hardware store two blocks from my office! Can't ask for better than that. Do try it.
This is a tip for the US and Canada only, but I'll follow with information about programs elsewhere.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:23 AM | Comments (0)
December 14, 2004
Greeting Cards
When I open an envelope this time of year I find myself hoping for more than just "greetings" from the people I really care about. I want to hear what's really happening with them. I want to connect myself, in return, with more than a hasty signature at the bottom of a card. The waste of exchanging holiday cards bothers me, but it is the one time of year that we reach out to a lot of people who aren't a regular part of our lives, and that's a good thing.
This year, as my live changes in the course of starting a new publishing business, I have a yen for paper and pen and the time to remember just why I'm staying in touch . . . time to tell certain special people that I care, and catch them up a little on what's really going on in my life.
Here's my plan for the hectic holidays of 2004: I'm going to write real letters to a dozen distant friends, old-fashioned letters with an enclosure or two, an article they might enjoy, or a copy of an old photo. Then I'm going to email another dozen people I've lost touch with. This is going to be my season of renewing connections, and for that I don't need a box of greeting cards.
(By the way, aren't e-greeting cards the worst idea ever?)
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:47 AM | Comments (0)
December 13, 2004
Witches' Knickers
I've been in Florida visiting my father-in-law. It's a good thing to get a look at what's Green (or not) in another part of the United States (Florida's an interesting case, too: a "red" state with a large "blue" population, at least in winter). I saw a "Pesticide-Free Park" sign, which I've never come across before, and a huge "Organic" sign in the supermarket. It was a wooden sign (or wood look-alike rustic) and hung at the front of the store above an alcove of packaged foods. We saw it only after checking out! (Talk about a half-hearted effort by Publix.)
And the checkout people wanted to pack every single item in a separate plastic bag. I know that paper bags aren't a benign choice, but hadn't realized just what a global problem plastic carrier bags had become till I read an article in New Scientist called "Battle of the bag" (11 September 2004) which explained that the mobility of plastic bags makes them far more dangerous than they might otherwise be. They're called "'witches' knickers' in Ireland, 'white pollution' in China." Estimates are that we use 150 bags per person each year - a million a minute!
It's a surprisingly hard habit to kick, I find, as I endlessly remind my husband to take bags with him to the supermarket. But it's easy to say 'no' to them, as I did even at the airport on the way home yesterday.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 5:38 AM | Comments (0)