My Travel Checklist
April 30, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Green Journal , 6 comments
Despite my best efforts, my 5 year old is being held captive by the marketing geniuses at Disney. So for our last off-season family vacation (before she starts kindergarten), we are headed for Disneyland. To offset this fun but rather commercial destination, I searched around for some simple travel tips and found a couple of good lists ( here and here). I used these ideas and compiled our own green check list that my family agreed to obey.
1. Stay near Disneyland so we can just use the free shuttle and avoid the hassle of driving and idling while looking for parking.
2. Turn down the thermostat before we leave.
3. Unplug unnecessary electronics like our computers and TV.
4. Pack our own toiletries, water bottles and snack containers (so we refill snacks from large bags and avoid convenience plastic ones).
5. Avoid the urge to over pack so we can take our smaller and more fuel efficient car.
6. Turn down the AC and use the “do not change linens daily” option at the hotel.
7. Try to dine-in at restaurants, rather than eating on-the-go with styrofoam and plastic containers.
8. Only a limited number of useful souvenirs (like a sweatshirt or hat) are allowed. We even made our own autograph book so we don’t have to buy one.
We’ve already complied with the Rule #1. The rest of items seem fairly easy to do, though Rule #8 will take some restraint and discipline. So we’ll see how we fare on this trip.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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My garage lost 150 pounds!
April 29, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 12 comments
It was almost the end of April and my committed effort to declutter had not taken off the ground. So this past weekend, I decided to start with the most cluttered place – our garage. Many people have seen these scary garages where junk piles from the floor to the ceiling. Parking a car? Don’t even think about it. Not even enough space to squeeze in a bike. On our very street there are a couple of houses that have accumulated 20 years of junk (oh, they prefer to call it treasure). On rare occasions when I see the inside of these garages, I shudder and promise myself that mine will NEVER EVER be like that.
The only way to completely declutter, according to my husband, is to move everything out into the sunlight and carefully consider which ones deserve to be moved back in. So after two hours of moving everything to the driveway and front yard, we had people walk by and ask if we were having a garage sale. Not quite yet, we said. Maybe come back in a week.
It was embarrassing that in the pile were bags and bags of baby clothes, most of which had never been used. After doing lots of oos and ahs about how cute these 0-3 months baby clothes were, I stuffed them back into the bags and pushed them to the go side, ie., to be disposed. It’s always been difficult for me to get rid of clutter because I unwisely assign sentimental values to stuff, especially when it comes to baby items. But this weekend, I decided to give myself only 10 minutes to reminisce. That moved things along much faster. Baby toys, to the go side, pack-n-play, to the go side, high char, to the go side…
Computer keyboards, 5 extra mice, old speakers, 30 cables of some sort, and boxes and boxes of floppy discs! Remember those? To the go side.
2 snow brushes/ice scrapers? It’s never snowed a flake where we live. To the go side.
The let go started getting easier once I was in a groove.
Knickknacks and figurines we received over the years and could not part because friends so and so gave to us. Sorry, to the go side to find better homes.
And books, loads and loads of books, from undergrad to graduate school from both of us. Don’t think we’d be rereading Advanced Calculus. Sorry, knowledge, to the go side.
This purging process went on for 3 hours. When it was all done, our garage shed about 150 pounds. The question then was where the 150 lbs of “treasure” could go. The easiest approach was taking to Goodwill, my husband’s clear preference. But why go the easy route when you can have more complicated and time-consuming ways to dispose the “treasure”.
So we agreed that I had a month to find homes for the “treasure”. After that it will call Goodwill its new home.
Then Sunday morning, at our local farmers’ market, we bumped into these friends that we had not seen for three years. They used to live in Tahoe and moved to our little city six months ago! And they are pregnant with their first child! My mind started turning. After 30 minutes of reconnecting, I worked our “treasure” into the conversation. It was actually a somewhat risky topic. Apparently some first-time parents can be quite offended when offered second-hand baby items. Seriously, some do.
Luckily our friends are beyond cool. They are coming to pick up all our baby stuff this week. Well, can you blame me for congratulating myself for my first decluttering success?!
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Mint, Mint Everywhere
April 28, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Green Journal , 5 comments
I finally made it to my book club last week to discuss our April reading, “From Grass to Gardens” by Janet Lemke. The reviews on the book were mixed but it did inspire an interesting discussion of different vegetables and herbs to grow in urban yards as well as various uses for these plants. First, it amazed me how many varieties of vegetation people can plant in a small yard: potatoes, chard, tomatoes, chard, lettuce, etc. That’s not including the various berries and citrus and other fruit trees abundant in our area. Second, we all seemed to have unexpected transplants deposited by birds, squirrels and other little creatures, though we don’t always know what to do with these visitors.
For me, the unexpected visitor was mint. A couple years ago, we noticed a strange plant sprouting between the fence and my climbing rose. After a quick touch and sniff, we realized it was mint. Thinking that a little mint is always useful, we left it alone. Within a month, the mint tripled in size and we had lost the opportunity to tame the mint into containers. Mint, as we found out too late, is a vigorous grower and hard to contain once established. Every few months, we would cut the mint back but other than using a few sprigs to make mojitos or as garnish, the rest went into the green waste can.
Inspired by our discussion, I searched the internet for ideas on using mint. To my surprise, there are many ideas. Here are a few of my picks.
- The most common (and easiest) is to add mint to iced or hot tea. Just steep the mint leaves with the tea and discard.
- If you like lamb, mint jelly is a must.
- There are also recipes for candied mint leaves, which looked pretty good. Note that most recipes recommend using only the top 3 to 5 leaves of the sprig for food purposes. Apparently the older leaves may be too pungent.
- Mint can apparently repel moths. To use, tie mint sprigs together and wrap a piece of cheese cloth around it (to catch dry leaf flakes). Hang upside down in the closet with a ribbon.
- In warm weather, use mint to make a refreshing face wash. Just crush a handful of mint leaves and put in a quart of water for one or two hours. Take out the leaves and refrigerate the water until you want to use it.
I’ve already tried mint tea and the mint face wash. Both were winners 
And if you have other ideas, let me know as the mint is getting quite unruly with the warm weather.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Maybe the world is flat
April 24, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Opinions & Thoughts , 10 comments
As CindyC wrote a week ago, many people who believe it is futile to make personal changes and conserve natural resources often like to point out that the conservation effort in the U.S. will be completely overshadowed by the sharp increase in countries like China and India.
So when I heard about the US-China Green Energy Conference, I had to find out for myself whether China was undertaking any effort to reduce its environmental impact. My impression from the conference was that
- China was trying to the best of its ability, but the effort was insufficient
- It wasn’t going to let the green house gas emission slow down its economic growth
- We in the west were all contributing to its economic growth and its massive emission by sending over product orders
The Chairman of the Chinese Academy of Science presented three green technologies currently being widely deployed in China – solar water heating, wind power and biogas.
- 80 million solar water heaters have been deployed in Chinese households
- The low cost implementation of wind power generators has put China in the top 5 countries in terms of installed wind capacity
- As early as 2005, 216 billion cubic feet of biogas has been generated from domestic animal waste to power 14 million rural residence
(Solar Water Heaters: courtesy of Global Environmental Teaching)
He also pointed out somewhat ironically even though most of the solar panels had been manufactured in China, they were too expensive to be adopted there. Yep, the reality is that it is a thriving economy based on low labor, material and operation costs. He said, China is dubbed as the “world factory”. You wonder how Wal-mart can sell crappy toys for $0.5.
The director of the Energy Research Institute, who shared a piece of the Nobel prize (being on IPCC ) gave the attendees some stunning statistics about the growth in China. By 2030, 85% of the infrastructure in China (buildings, transportation systems, communication systems, etc) will be built or rebuilt – brand new country in the next 20 years. It is nightmarish to imagine how much natural resource and energy this unprecedented construction will consume. China has been focusing on rapidly increasing energy efficiency. Buildings codes are being overhauled (he cited that more than 18 billion square feet of new buildings are erected every year), production infrastructure is being adjusted, urban planning is being redesigned, transportation systems are literally being built.
I was exhausted just from listening to this. I saw a picture of absolute chaos with environmental protection completely lost in the midst. Even though it brings a new coal firing plant online every week and it imports petroleum like there is no tomorrow, the “world factory” still does not have enough fuel. Out of necessity, the country is forced to explore energy efficiency and alternative energy sources.
The silver lining was that both the Chinese directors believe that China will hit carbon emission peak around 2030. Is that too late?
The conference went on to discuss new alternative energy options and issues. Absolutely fascinating. I won’t detail here.
It was overwhelming to digest what I had learned from the conference. However I certainly did NOT walk away from the conference thinking that it was futile for us to make changes in our lifestyle. In fact, the “world factory” notion made me even more determined to consume less. Majority of the finished products from the “world factory” are shipped all over the world in big container ships. It is at best disingenuous for us to lament how it is all so useless to conserve energy in the U.S., as we are sending non-stop orders to the “world factor” to pump out products to satisfy our consumption. Aren’t we at least one of the big culprits for the pollution? Makes Cruchy’s Buy Nothing Challenge all the more worth doing, doesn’t it?
CindyW at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
What I Did On Earth Day
April 22, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Opinions & Thoughts , add a comment
Last night, one of my friends asked me what I did or bought anything special on Earth Day. I told them honestly that I did nothing out of the ordinary.
- In the morning, my daughter and I played in the yard, measured the height of our vegetable seedlings and taught Katie Bear the names of our new spring blossoms. We then took a walk around the neighborhood and picked up a couple pieces of stray trash along the way.
- In the afternoon, I had the joy of having the preschool kids “teach” me about their spring garden and their very full RolyPoly Pig composter. I was especially proud when my daughter automatically put her snack scraps into the compost bin, as if it was second nature to her.
- For dinner, we had a meal made with seasonal produce (from the farmers’ market) and local, free range chicken.
- Before her bedtime, my daughter and I read a book borrowed from the library.
- After the nightly cleanup was done, my husband and I planned for our summer garden and then I feverishly tried to finish my gardening book (for my bookclub discussion tonight).
The most notable thing about my otherwise ordinary day was that there was an element of a Green Journal action in every one of our activities: appreciating nature, composting, eating local and organic foods and enjoying the simple things in life, without the aid of TV, trendy eco-friendly products or the mall.
I guess I subconsciously followed The Good Human’s call to make Earth Day truly about the Earth and not consumerism.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Fruit of the earth - garden continued
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 12 comments
Happy Earth Day. Actually I think it’s been an Earth year for many of you eco-nuts, so Happy Anniversary
Aside from reporting that my husband continues to hijack my garden project, I am beyond excited to tell you that we harvested two strawberries this weekend. Yes, two whole ones which we split between the four of us. They were the best we have ever tasted, but then we weren’t exactly unbiased.
A month ago, when strawberries first presented their glorious selves in the farmers’ market, I was suspicious enough to question the farmers whether they were truly locally grown. “Are they from Mexico?” I slipped in a quick question to a vendor that I had not seen before. “No,” he was either insulted or amused by my ignorance, “we are in Watsonville” – which is only 25 miles south of us. Standing in the 50 degree weather, I wasn’t entirely convinced. Well, now that they have turned bright red with my brown thumb, I must apologize to the strawberry farmers I doubted. Here it goes: I am so very sorry that I ever suspected you for slipping some south of the border strawberries into the market.
Guess we are just super strawberry lucky.
What is the wire mesh all about? You ask. Well, our strawberries are being protected under high security fence from urban scavengers – raccoons. They can be quite cute, but they are tough as nails and they stole our first two strawberries. The nerve! The berries were there one evening, being adored and salivated on by us, then the next morning, they were gone. No leaves were trampled upon and the unripe berries were never touched. A couple of nights later, I heard rustling in the backyard at night and tiptoed to the window. A shadow quickly climbed up and over the fence. Thief! A thief with incredible agility and dexterity! Ever since we “locked up” our strawberry plants, we have not lost a berry yet. I have no doubt that the raccoons are scheming.
Our lettuce and bush beans were transplanted from the seedling box to the ground this weekend.
Carrots, tomatoes, and green onions will go in next week. Then the peppers and chard. In the seedling box, we just put in water melon, sunflower and Marigold seeds. I admit that we went a bit crazy being first-timers and all.
It’s strange but utterly gratifying to watch the plants start from seemingly life-less seeds, break out of the ground with their fragile and tiny limbs, and finally stretch tall and strong enough to stand on their own in the ground.
(image courtesy of Norman Public Schools Technology)
My whole family watches them grow a little bit everyday with such fascination, you’d think they were babies. Maybe I am totally weird, but I feel very touched by the process.
What’s next? Singing and reading poetry to them? Then you know for sure that I have not just gone eco-nuts, but nuts. Period.
CindyW
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Follow Up Thoughts on Recycling
April 21, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Opinions & Thoughts , 6 comments
After reading the great comments on last week’s post on RecycleBank, I decided to do an informal survey (among my “light green” friends) about recycling habits.
To Joyce’s point about lack of curbside access, sadly, no one said they would make an effort to recycle or drop off at a local recycling center – at least no consistently. Even when I mentioned the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, no one honestly believed they would consistently recycle without a curbside access.
To Greenbean’s point of low recycling rates (of certain items), even with convenience of curbside pickup, all of them said they use their recycling bins to some extent but 6 out of 8 said allowable vs. unallowable recyclables are confusing. A few said their cities don’t take any plastics containers; some say theirs take only certain numbers but can’t remember which ones; my city doesn’t take paper milk cartons but will take plastic milk jugs. The list of confusing items was probably more than the list of generally accepted recyclables. None of them remembers ever getting a recycle clarification list and only 3 has ever bothered searching on their local waste management website. If single stream or co-mingle recycling was available (like in Donna’s neighborhood), all 8 said they believe they would see recycle more as it would eliminate the chore of sorting and guessing.
To arduous’ point on incentives, 4 out of 8 said they would spend more time sorting out recyclable items if recycling were free but garbage service was not. However, all of them agreed that they would make the effort if a program like RecycleBank actually paid for the recycling. Having redeemable points to spend on other things and measurable results swayed the holdouts.
Not surprisingly, the overarching theme is that if made easier, more people would recycle. However, as all the commenters pointed out, the current, fragmented and often inconsistent recycling programs have much room for improvements. On a bright note though, at least in my county, the plan is to fully convert to single stream recycling by 2010. Slowly, local governments seem to be catching on…
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
Banking on Recycling
April 17, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Communities , 6 comments
As I was taking out my curbside recycling this week, I noticed that not all my neighbors have their recycling boxes out. That got me wondering about recycling rates and habits, so I did a quick search on this question.
I couldn’t find any definitive answer on the percentage of people who recycle as it seems to vary from state to state. However, according to the EPA, recycling rate of household trash, or municipal solid waste (MSW), has doubled since 1990, from 16% to 32%. Much of this increase is attributed to widespread curbside recycling programs and composting.
Well, the optimist in me was happy to this increased rate but the critic in me wondered why don’t more people do it? More important, how can we encourage people to recycle more?
Then I came across an article about RecycleBank, a company that gives monetary incentive to increase recycling. The idea is really quite simple. Participating household receives a (free) recycling container with an electronic tracking system. On recycling/garbage day, trucks equipped with special computers weigh the recycled materials, scans the bin tracker and electronically credits the household account with “points”. These recycle points can then be redeemed at local retail partners like CVS, Target or even Starbucks. Each household can also track the amount of recyclables they help divert from landfills. In 2004, RecycleBank launched operations in Philadelphia and noted a dramatic rise in recycle rates – from 7% to 90%! In addition to the monetary reward (averaging $8 per week per household), RecycleBank founder also believes measurable results encourage better behavior.
Since then, RecycleBank has expanded to many cities in the Northeast as well as pilot college programs. Because RecycleBank makes money by collecting a percentage of landfill fees saved by its program, it can continue to offer free bins to households and help cities achieve their waste reduction goals. Unfortunately, operations are still mostly focused on the Northeast but I hope it will soon consider expanding to the West Coast and my neighborhood.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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Biking to yummy park
April 15, 2008
Posted by CindyW in : Green Journal , 4 comments
Weather? Check. 82 degrees and not a cloud in sight
Cash? Check.
Helmets? Check.
Grocery bags? Check. All 8 of them (yeah, we were ambitious)
Off we went, to the farmers’ market, a mile and a half away. My 5 year old commented that it was like riding to the park, except this park had yummy strawberries and popcorn. We’ve always driven those one and a half miles. Embarrassing? Yes, but sort of, kind of with a reason – logistics.
With a 5 year old who likes to ride a trail-a-bike, and a 3 year old who screams bloody murder when forced into a trailer, the physical configuration of the children, the bikes and the storage (for the farmers’ market loot) has been somewhat challenging.
After some trial and error that involved kids falling from their seats, we finally figured it out. Here it is:
Mom leading the pack with the 3 year old in the back seat; dad and the 5 year old following with the bike trailer as the caboose, we were riding our bike train to the park with lots of fresh food.
Along the way, a friend, heading to the same destination in her car, rolled down the window and hollered, “Can your bikes have any more attachments?” We had sun hats hanging on the side of the trailer (which we had to chase down after they got blown off), flowers and weeds waving from the back (my girls’ doing), and a bike pump poking out. But we beat her by 10 minutes – the time she spent circling around trying to find a parking spot on business streets.
We have not perfected our logistics yet – left our bike locks in the garage. Then again, what are the odds of our bikes being stolen outside a vibrant farmers’ market? Maybe I am just naïve. But our bikes were right there when we walked out of the market. Well my rear wheel was wet; it must be mistaken as a lamp post or a fire hydrant by a passing canine. Oh well.
After consuming our fresh loot right outside the market (yeah, we are all about instant gratification) – strawberries, fresh apple cider from a farm 10 miles away, and cheese from a local artisan shop, we all concluded that this was one of our best farmers’ market trips yet - relaxing, fun, yum.
Now we just need to perfect our bike train and all its attachments
CindyW
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Why Do You Bother?
April 14, 2008
Posted by CindyC in : Green Journal , 4 comments
Last week, I was watching a news show when the topic of energy conservation came up. The show took a question from a viewer who wanted to know if his new resolve to use public transportation and the current promotion of hybrids, biofuel and other alternatives will make a difference in oil consumption (in the foreseeable future). The short and unequivocal answer from the show’s analyst is NO.
Why? To put it simply, the analyst explained that the small amount of decrease in US oil consumption from conservation (and likely economic slowdown) is completely overshadowed by the sharp demand increase in countries like China and India. The analyst then put up some data. Oil consumption in the US (in 2008) is projected to decline by about 85,000 barrels of oil per day (bbl/d); adjusting for use of ethanol will bring that decline to 210,000 bbl/day. Not so bad until you see that overall global consumption is projected to increase by 1.2 million bbl/day and will likely continue to rise in future years. (1) The analyst ends his answer session by saying if you hope your efforts will make a difference, don’t bother!
I am fully aware of the global forces that are greater than a single person, group or country but to say “don’t bother – YOU don’t matter” is like saying death is inevitable so why bother living? Does the action of an individual make no difference at all? Unless technologies like solar panels hybrid engines magically appeared, their inception began in the mind of an individual and their advancement pushed forward by the voices of many individuals. And what about the individual who found another like-minded individual and another to form organizations like Sierra Club or the NRDC, groups that exert influence on local and national environmental legislations? You can argue that these groups can do more but you can’t ague that without the individual, there would be no groups.
Now if exerting influence over the global commodities market was my primary goal, then yeah, I shouldn’t bother. But that’s not why I try to preserve, conserve or recycle.
-
–I bother because I want to lead a life with greater consciousness and not consumption.
–I bother because I want to set a good example for my child.
–I bother because I, along with millions of others, believe together, WE can make a difference.
And so I begin my week with this manifesto.
CindyC at Organicpicks
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source:
(1) Latest outlook update at the EIA
Copyright 2007 Organicpicks
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