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)
June 2, 2005
Dishwashing mania
The first book I wrote about environmental issues was called Home Ecology, and was published in London in 1989 and in the United States in 1990. In it, I was something of a hairshirt environmentalist, critical of microwave ovens and also of dishwashers--neither of which, you'll not be surprised to hear, I had in my tiny basement flat in London, where the kitchen was really just a little entrance hallway cramped with a stove and sink.
Since then, I've lightened up. Microwaves are astonishingly energy-efficient, and are not simply for the reheating of prepackaged meals. I use ours (my husband's!) all the time for melting butter, toasting nuts and tortilles (yes, this really works), and reheating leftovers.
It's hard to believe now that I, who love to cook and entertain, survived without a dishwasher and even proposed that others should, especially since my partner in London was not included to share in household tasks. Our dishwasher gave up the ghost recently--hardly a surprise, as it was here when we moved in in 1995--and my daughter's conclusion is that washing dishes by hand is fun for two days.
The good news is that less water is used, in general, by using a dishwasher than by handwashing. That's of course because when we do wash by hand we leave the tap running and are wasteful overall. But you can salve your conscious by becoming highly skilled about filling the dishwaster and then running it on the lowest energy setting.
For more, just put "water usage dishwashers" into a search engine: you'll find plenty of information of what to do, and buy.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 7:11 PM | Comments (0)
March 11, 2005
Unbottle your water
"The Armchair Environmentalist is filled with wisdom for those who want to live an environmentally responsible life. For example, simply saying no to bottled water will save energy and measurably reduce carbon emissions. Karen Christensen has incorporated more environmental advice in this crisp, tightly written volume than in anything I've seen to date."--Lester R. Brown, President, Earth Policy Institute and author of Plan B: Rescuing a Planet Under Stress and a Civilization in Trouble.
I'm glad to have Les Brown's blessing on my advice about water, because a friend complained about it the other day. We've really been persuaded that bottled water is purer and healthier and somehow part of what someone recently referred to as 'conscious living.' This is simply not so--just Google for references to studies on this--but that doesn't mean it's a hard habit to break. Yet practically, in western nations, it's dead easy to carry a bottle and refill it from time to time (if you don't lose things all the time, as I do, there are even beautiful stainless steel water bottles that'll keep water cold in the desert).
Even here in London, the tap water's perfectly okay. Used to be that there were separate taps for drinking water, and you weren't supposed to drink from the bathroom tap either, because water was stored in houses in big murky vats in the attic, to get a little pressure I think. No more. You can even take showers here now.
Posted by Karen Christensen at 2:32 PM | Comments (0)
February 10, 2005
One drop at a time
Midwinter is when the gardening bug strikes me, because I'm so much in need of greenery and flowers (and folic acid!). One thing I'm doing is growing sprouts, sick of the high prices and dreariness of the salad greens in the shops (they're clearly labelled as coming from California, with signs apologizing for the high price).
I was rinsing my sprouts last night, filling the jar with tap water and letting it run out through the screen lid, and realized that while it's cheap to grow sprouts (one tablespoon of alfalfa seed makes a quart of crunchy salad stuff) this form of agriculture requires a prodigious amount of pure clean water.
Water is fast approaching fossil fuels as the resource we'll be battling over. And there's no substitute for it, no way to make it or capture it from space (as we can grab energy from sunlight streaming down to earth). For a start, let's start looking at water afresh, appreciating what we have (safe tap water, clean clothes, and hot showers whenever we like). Then we can work together to find ways to ensure that our grandchildren, too, as well as other children around the world, will be able to enjoy these things.
What to do?
Not only can you just get used to turning the tap--whoops, in the US we call this a faucet--on and off more. Perhaps the very most important way to save water is to make sure it's not just leaking or dripping away. A drip of one drop per second can easily waste 2,700 gallons of water over the course of a year!! A hot water tap is even more problematic, and expensive.
But plumbers are expensive, too, so my resolution this month is to order--and use--a book I've long known about: Dare to Repair: A Do-it-Herself Guide to Fixing (Almost) Anything in the Home. My daughter and I will fix a leak or two ourselves and report back!
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:19 PM | Comments (0)
December 2, 2004
Water, water
"Water, water, every where,
Nor any drop to drink."
That's what the Ancient Mariner said, and that's what many people will say in years to come, as we finally tune in to the fact that fresh sweet water is a precious natural resource. 2003 was the International Year of Fresh Water, and it's well worth Googling "fresh water" to read about just what the issues are. And at home it's easy to make a difference: just turn that tap off, take a shorter shower, fix drips, and water your garden in the evening or very early in the morning.
Year of Fresh Water
Posted by Karen Christensen at 6:00 AM | Comments (0)