http://www.bestlifeonline.com/cms/publish/health-fitness/Our_oceans_are_turning_into_plastic_are_we_2.shtml
(One day soon, I am going to figure out how to put lists of my favourite blogs into a sidebar, and also how to make a word link to something, instead of my clunky method of pasting the whole url. One day. I swear.)
It is very easy to become completely and totally overwhelmed by the problems out there, and by trying to figure out what to do first. There are a few categories of issues, which I'm going to briefly outline here:
reduce the garbage
eliminate plastic
buy and accumulate less stuff (because everything you buy is going to end up in a landfill someday)
eat locally-grown food
become vegetarian
become more self-sufficient (grow your own food, getting "off the grid," learn some old-fashioned skills)
use less electricity
use less water
use less gasoline (walk, cycle, public transportation)
It really is a lot, considering that most people are totally occupied just figuring out how to pay the rent, buy the groceries, and get the kids to soccer on time. I am going to share with you some of the changes that we're making around here. This is still baby steps, because I am learning as I go. I have to thank my husband, because most of them involve his help. He isn't quite as freaked out about the environmental stuff as I am, but he is extremely understanding and cooperative.
- I have stopped using Q-tips. It's a small thing, but I had to start somewhere.
- Derek fixed the toilet that was constantly running. Hopefully that will cut down on our water usage.
- Derek replaced the showerhead to a low-flow style. I was already in the habit of turning off the shower while soaping up, but now it is ALSO a low-flow, so it should save even more.
- We are installing a clothesline. First, I bought the clothespins. Then, I bought the clothesline kit. Now, I need to wait for Derek to install it. He knows I'm pretty fired up about this one, so I'm sure it will only be a week or two.
- Derek replaced all the lightbulbs in the house with the curly CFL bulbs.
- Derek shut off our furnace fan. For some reason, our furnace fan used to blow 24/7/365. It never, ever stopped, winter or summer. Now, the house is very silent. Now, I can hear the fridge running.
- We replaced our windows a couple of months ago. Technically, this doesn't belong on this list, but it will definitely help with the heating bill in the winter.
I also learned that our house uses about 1,300 kilowatt hours of electricity every month. I still don't really know what that means, because I can't compare it to anything, and I totally and completely do NOT understand electricity. My poor hubby has tried several times to explain it to me, to no avail. I need to find the children's book of electricity, with really good pictures, and maybe I will figure it out. Anyway, 1300kwh is a lot. Way more than average. We can definitely do better on this one.
We use about 150 GJ of natural gas in a year. That sounds like a nice, small number, but it's not. We installed new windows this year, so I am very curious to see how much that cuts down on our usage. I don't really know what else we can do to reduce this. Keeping the temperature kind of low, and washing our clothes in cold water are the only 2 things I can think of.
Here are some things that I want to do soon:
- Switch from ob tampons to the DivaCup, or some other variety of non-disposable "unmentionable."
- Start shopping at the farmer's market, at least once in a while.
- Develop a habit of ALWAYS carrying canvas shopping bags with me so that I NEVER have to resort to plastic ones again. EVER. Plastic bags should be illegal.
- Find an alternative to those thin, filmy vegetable bags that you use at the grocery store to wrap your veggies in.
- Switch to vinegar, baking soda, and soap flakes and start making my own cleaners, shampoo, etc.
- Talk to my neighbour, who is vegetarian, about what they eat for supper. I am a pretty good cook, and I can make at least 100 different meat-based recipes, but I only have a handful of really good vegetarian dishes in my repertoire. My husband won't eat most of them.
- Find and join a Community-Shared-Agriculture farm, the kind where you buy a share, you go and help out a few times a year, and you get a portion of the produce.
- Learn more about my options for locally-grown food, like what on earth to eat. I don't think that sugar, olive oil, coffee or chocolate are available locally.
- Start making more things from scratch, like cookies, muffins, and granola bars. This way, they won't need to be individually wrapped.
- Figure out how to go on a picnic without wrapping everything in plastic. I just don't know how to do it.
- Get my bicycle tuned up so that I can ride it again. In another year or two, when the youngest is off his training wheels, we could actually run some errands by bicycle.
6 comments:
Develop a habit of ALWAYS carrying canvas shopping bags with me
LOL When I was cashier, I'd sometimes promote the re-usable bags our grocery store had because I love them so much. They're the best size and shape I've ever seen for those. Most people told me they already had lots at home - they just never remembered to bring them!
Others used an amazing variety of bags from all over. Hiker's backpacks hold an amazing amount. I had one customer that would take things like cereal out of their cardboard packaging because she knew the store recycled it all. Less space taken up in her bag, too. I even had one customer that used a large woven basket. Incredibly bulky.
Find an alternative to those thin, filmy vegetable bags
I don't know where they got them from, but I had a few customers using fine knotted cord bags. I've seen instructions on how to make them. In fact, I think I have instructions in my craft encyclopedia set. In a box. Stored in Manitoba. *sigh*
Find and join a Community-Shared-Agriculture farm
An alternative is a service like Small Potatoes, which we were on when living in Richmond. The company bought from organic farms, local as much as possible, and made up different sized bins that where delivered regularly. You left the bin from last time with a check in it for them to pick up when they dropped off the new one. I loved it. I think most large cities have similar companies.
Figure out how to go on a picnic without wrapping everything in plastic.
Wrapping in plastic? You mean like plastic film? Sandwich bags? We'd use (or re-use) things like cookie tins, or stuff like Tupperware (yes, plastic, but recycled plastic). Plastic seals so much better, though, so the food is less likely to spoil in transit.
Hi there! It seems that we're working on a lot of the same actions to reduce our negative impact - I look forward to checking in our your progress, learning a thing or two and perhaps having the opportunity to share anything that I've stumbled across.
Kunichi mentioned Small Potatoes Urban Delivery (www.spud.ca) and they do operate in several areas in Alberta...Calgary mainly.
I'm in Vancouver and have been using them for the past year or so, with positive reviews. Their website ordering system tells you how far an item has travelled to reach their warehouse - a great feature for those of us trying to eat only locally grown, organic foods. That said, I too have been looking into the CSA option. My only reservation thus far is my understanding that you receive a bulk delivery of each vegetable as it is harvested (ie. 10 pounds of carrots), with perhaps little else in the order that week. I don't know if I'm understanding it ocrrectly and, if I am, I guess that's what in-season, local eating is about...right?
So much else to talk about, but running out of time for today. I'll close with a tip about adding links (just learned how to do this myslef two days ago :-)
When you are composing your post and would like to have a word or phrase become an active link, highlight the chosen word/phrase then click on the image of the world/link on the taskbar. A little window will open allowing you to type or paste the url you want to include. Once you hit OK, the link will be embedded in the word (you'll see that the word or phrase is now underlined).
Let me know if it works - have fun!
Something about the picnic and not wrapping anything in plastic caught my attention the most. I've wondered about packagings on and off. Part of it is due to my childhood love of Little House on the Prairie. They brought their lunches to school in tin pails. What did they eat? How was it wrapped up? Can we not do the same?
While I avoid using plastic wrap and plastic bags as much as I can, we use our fair share of Tupperware-type products. I suppose this is better than covering stuff in plastic wrap, but... What did they use in the past? Or did they not horde so much that they didn't need anything?
I've been thinking about the plastic wrap issue. I wonder if wax paper would work. I wonder if wax paper is better than plastic, or just as bad?
Well, I found this at Kellogg's:
Wax paper liners are biodegradable.
(Of course, wax paper is also recyclable, although probably not if it's too dirty.)
Other stuff seems to indicate that it's definitely better for the environment than plastic wrap.
Well seeing as we have watched all of Season 5, 6, 7 and 8 of Little House these pasts months...I should know how they wrapped the food. I will look into that!!!
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