Archive for the ‘Recycling’ Category
February 2nd, 2009
Embrace Eco-friendly Child Care
Stumble it!
You care about the environment and also your family’s health. So it’s time to embrace eco-friendly child care!
Many daycare and child-care centers around the U.S. are embracing eco-friendly ways, and it’s not a day too soon. That’s why we’re building a huge directory of eco-friendly child care centers around the country. We have over 120 listed so far and we’re adding more every day. Check them out! And if you know of one you’d like to add, please send us an email to feedback@lowimpactliving.com.
The State of Oregon’s Environmental Council has taken a pioneering role in certifying child-care centers with their Eco-Healthy Child Care program. Child care facilities qualify as “Eco-Healthy” by completing a 25-element checklist that highlights 25 steps facilities can take to ensure a safe place for children. Eco-healthy child care centers commit to reducing a child’s exposure to toxins and other environmental health hazards.
As you know, children’s little lungs and respiratory systems are particularly sensitive to toxins and irritants in cleaners, carpeting, furniture and other elements. That’s why it’s so important to pay attention to indoor air quality when children are in the mix. You need to be able to rest assured that your daycare center uses non-toxic cleaners and is careful about outdoor and other pollutants that might come in from landscaping, street care, etc.
The Eco-Healthy Child Care checklist includes questions about cleaning toxins, lead paint, furniture, plastic toys, recycling and more. Take the checklist to your current daycare facility and have them fill it out– it will be illuminating for you as a parent and may inspire them to take positive action!
We hope you can find a great facility near you– and please continue to check back here at Low Impact Living as we will be adding centers frequently. Here’s to healthy kids and a healthy planet!
Popularity: 4% [?]
January 16th, 2009
Eat Chips, Save Trash: One L.A. Guy’s Almost Zero-waste Year
Think hardcore environmentalism requires living like a monk? Not if you ask Dave Chameides, a steadicam operator living in L.A. who collected all his trash for a year and blogged about the project. Dave created less trash in all of 2008 than an average American family throws out in a week. And more impressively, he achieved this eco-feat while drinking beer and eating potato chips.
“I didn’t want to change the way that I was living my life,” Dave says. “If I wanted to drink beer, I wasn’t going to say, well, I can’t find a way to drink beer without creating packaging, so therefore I’m not going to. Instead, what I’m going to do is look at the packaging in beer and pick the most ‘eco-friendly’ way to do it.”
The idea behind Dave’s project was to focus on things people could do without drastically changing their entire lifestyle. “There are definitely people out there who have done similar things where they’ve cut everything out of their life,” Dave says. “A lot of people who are really really hardcore have emailed me and said, ‘You know, you can just not eat potato chips.’ Well, yeah, but I wanna eat potato chips!”
So Dave opted for bigger bags of chips versus the more wasteful one-serving bags — and cut out packaging wherever he could. Buying used items on Craigslist, composting food and paper scraps in his worm bin, and shopping at the farmers’ market — where he could even take back his egg cartons to a farmer for reuse — helped downsize Dave’s trash pile.
In the end, Dave amassed just 30.5 pounds of non-recyclable trash. That wasn’t the only stuff he piled up in his garage though — Dave decided to keep his recyclables for the year too, to show that “recycling isn’t the answer.”
“If you look at the majority of the waste that I put out there, it’s recycling,” Dave says. “That’s gonna take energy, it’s going to take resources, it’s going to take all sorts of things. I think we’ve been trained in the U.S. to think that recycling is the answer. But statistically, only 10% of everything that can be recycled is recycled.”
Plus, recycling tends to be a loosely used term, according to Dave. “Take plastic water bottles. they’re not actually recycled, they’re downcycled. They’re turned into park benches and plastic wood and things like that. Recycling is turning something back into itself. With plastic water bottles, you need relatively virgin plastic resin, so as far as the next generation of plastic bottles goes, recycling’s not doing anything.” Recycling’s still better than sending things to the landfill, but isn’t a guilt-free eco-parctice, Dave says.
Takin’ Out The Trash from Sustainable Dave on Vimeo.
See Dave display all the trash he amassed in the short video above. The trash-collecting experiment ended Dec. 31, 2008, but Dave expects most of the habits he picked up during the year to remain permanent. “I got rid of all my junk mail — I’m not going to go back to having junk mail, obviously!” Dave says. He’ll also keep taking his own bag to the farmer’s market — and even taking sugar packet wrappers home to feed to the worm composter.
And Dave’s collected trash is going to become a permanent fixture too — at the Museum of Trash in Hartford, Conn., which will put Dave’s 30.5 lbs of nonrecyclable trash on exhibit later this month. Dave’s recyclables are going to become art as well, thanks to an artist in Seattle who wants to pulverize everything then create something new out of the remains.
What are Dave’s plans for 2009? He’s working on a book called 365 Days of Solutions, teaching eco-seminars, and working at a new job as the director of sustainability at a local school. You can follow Dave’s eco-journey and get tips to craft your own at sustainabledave.org.
Photo courtesy Dave Chameides
Popularity: 3% [?]
January 15th, 2009
Dear President Obama: Let’s Turn The White House Green
President Obama, we humbly beseech you to make your new home, The White House, a model green home. You have an incredible opportunity to make it a home from which all Americans can learn, and of which we can all be proud. What better way to start our country off on a bright new green path to the future than by making The White House the Great American Green House?
We’ve been encouraged by some of the things you’ve said about your intentions to make your home more eco-friendly, and we’d like to offer some thoughts on how you might flesh-out your green home renovation program.
First, let’s ground ourselves in some numbers. The White House is over 55,000 square feet and has 132 rooms. There are over 35 bathrooms and the building has three kitchens. Using our Household Environmental Impact Calculator, (and a few resources like the CBECS data for commercial buildings as your house doubles as an office building) we estimate that that The White House has a carbon footprint in the range of 1.2-1.5 million pounds of CO2 per year, uses somewhere around one million gallons of water, and generates over 50,000 pounds of trash each year. As a point of reference the average 2000 sq. foot American home has a carbon footprint of 65,000 pounds, uses 90,000 gallons or water and generates 3,800 pounds of trash per year. So The White House is no low-impact house! We have our work cut out for us.
Fortunately your predecessors have already taken some steps in a positive direction. President Carter famously installed a solar water system in 1979, which was then unfortunately taken down by President Reagan. However, in 2002 a new solar system was installed to power lighting for the grounds. Apparently the toilets have been changed to low-flow models and many of the water fixtures have also been upgraded. President Clinton commissioned the Rocky Mountain Institute to do a study on the White House and make recommendations for environmental improvements. We’re not sure how many of those got made– you’ll want to kick the tires on that one. (Perhaps someone from RMI could comment here?)
Here are some ideas we’d like you to explore for turning The White House a nice shade of green:
1) Let’s get the entire building off the grid. You could install more solar panels, and/or augment the system with a wind turbine. You could also look at geothermal energy options. We think it would quite feasible to generate enough power for the building using renewable energy sources. This would serve as a great example of clean-power living, and would actually save the government money in the long run.
2) How is the insulation situation? I’m sure you have attic insulation but let’s have a look inside the walls. I read that there are hundreds of year’s worth of copper wiring in many of the walls– let’s clean them out and blow in some soy foam or denim insulation. Full insulation could reduce heating and cooling costs by 5-10%.
3) Let’s turn part of the lawn into an organic vegetable garden. Encouraging Americans to eat fresh, local, organic produce will cut down on carbon emissions and also help us live healthier lives. That green grass is lovely, yes, but it sure sucks a lot of water for a low return on investment. Eleanor Roosevelt started a Victory Garden at your house long ago…let’s bring back that wonderful tradition! Author Michael Pollan has also advocated this idea. It would be a great treat to serve visiting dignitaries “Roasted White House Garden Vegetables” with their meal, would it not?
4) Speaking of organics, let’s make sure there’s a composting system in place. What happens with all of the food trash from the kitchens today? Well a composter could reduce the building’s trash load by 25-25%. It would be easy to set up, and your gardeners could use the compost mulch on your vegetable garden.
5) We hear Michelle has picked her decorator… and we hope that they’ll choose to use plenty of eco-friendly product in your decoration choices. How about some cork floors? They are sustainable and absorb sound. Or some reclaimed American wood flooring could look very nice. For furnishing we recommend antiques (anything used is more sustainable than newly made) or eco-friendly furniture made of sustainably-harvested woods and other recycled materials. For paints, obviously make sure to use no-VOC varieties, so that you and your family don’t breath toxic fumes. We need you to stay healthy for at least eight years!
6) Let’s review the lighting. Is everything running on LED and/or compact fluorescent lighting? The Pentagon has just announced they’re switching to LEDs– so should The White House. And we’d also want to make sure that we had maximized the use of light sensors– no need to light uninhabited areas. Perhaps there is even an option for increased day-lighting? We could install some new solar tube lighting to save energy and money.
7) How about getting all of your vehicles to run on biodiesel? There are a lot of big SUVs rushing around you and your home… it would be wonderful to have them running on American biodiesel fuels. Energy independence starts at The White House! You could have a biodiesel pumping station right there on the White House lot. Maybe one day even Air Force One will run on biodiesel!
Those are just some initial ideas. We here at Low Impact Living can’t wait to see you inaugurated and we hope you settle into your new home very nicely. We’ll look forward to hearing news of your Green House plans!
Popularity: 10% [?]
January 9th, 2009
Get Your Space OrGREENized in ‘09
Today we’re joined by guest blogger Jeff Hobbs of Organize-Design-Live. Jeff specializes in home organization and interior design in Los Angeles and he is going to share some helpful thoughts with us on getting orGREENized in the New Year.
Get orGREENized in ‘09
Are your closets and drawers your worst enemies? Do you constantly misplace files at your office? Well, it’s a new year so that means we have the opportunity to make some changes, let go of the guilt about the things we didn’t do last year, and start fresh. Getting your personal space organized will result in more efficiency in just about every area of your life. . . a great place to start if you’re serious about fulfilling some of this year’s resolutions. And why not roll the resolutions of getting organized and being more environmentally friendly into one? There are so many great products on the market today, along with other creative organizational systems, that won’t break your bank or our environment.
Here are a few ideas, products, and tips to get you started…
Amazon.com is a great resource for many of your organizational needs, especially if you like one-stop shopping and want to keep within a budget. Some of my favorite organizational solutions on Amazon include products made of recycled plastic, bamboo and seagrass, and recycled cardboard.
This colorful, recycled desktop organizing tray is attractive so it doesn’t have to be hidden away in a drawer or closet and it’s made of recycled, non-biodegradable trash. It doesn’t get any greener than that. Just put your pens, papers, business cards and other little items in here and you’re good to go.
Choosing products made of renewable resources like bamboo or seagrass is another environment-conscious option when deciding which organizational products work best for you. And there are so many options on the market, from large and small storage boxes to drawer organizers to bathroom accessories. Not only are both materials naturally beautiful, making them a great option for storage that will be seen out in the open, but they’re strong and will definitely stand the test of time.
For example look at this bamboo media bin at left– wouldn’t that look better than a big ugly stack of magazines and other papers? They also come in different sizes for storing DVDs and Videos.
If bamboo isn’t your style, then how about seagrass? It looks natural and lovely. This seagrass file box would make a great addition to your new organized office. Just think how productive you’ll be when you can actually find what you’re looking for.
For the budget conscious organizer (and who isn’t?), I highly recommend products made of recycled cardboard. They’re inexpensive, stackable, and available in a multitude of colors, sizes, and shapes; the perfect go-to option for just about any space. These document boxes at left are made of recycled cardboard.
My most favorite tip for getting orGREENized is to use what you already have or would otherwise toss. It’s the ultimate in green and cheap! If you’re like me, you probably have some shipment boxes lying around from all the gifts you ordered online. Or, you have boxes that contained your favorite holiday presents. Rather than breaking them down and throwing them away (hopefully in the recycle bin), use them for storage. Obviously, this would not be the best option if you’d prefer your organizational systems to have a more refined look or if your storage will be kept in a visible place. But for storing holiday ornaments in the garage, old magazines and newspapers in your closet, or your kid’s memorabilia in the attic, it’s the perfect green option.
And if the idea of having unattractive storage containers ANYWHERE in your home isn’t appealing, I completely understand, so I have a creative solution for you, too. Used gift wrap, covers of old magazines, newspapers, your kid’s coloring book pages, a pair of scissors, and a jar of Mod Podge (basically, thinned out white glue, available in any craft/art store) is all you need to decorate and cover those less-than-attractive cardboard boxes. It’s a fun project and, I promise, it’ll make you feel like a kid again. Who didn’t love the class projects that included scissors, paper, and lots of glue? Just don’t eat the paste!
Happy New Year and Happy orGREENizing!
Popularity: 3% [?]
December 30th, 2008
Green New Year’s Resolutions for 2009
It’s time to say a fond farewell to 2008—and now we have an excellent opportunity to embrace the environment with some new Green New Year’s Resolutions for 2009. We have recommendations for you, of course—and this time we offer resolutions for those of you we like to call “light green” or just getting started with eco-friendly living, as well as some more challenging ones for you Green Jedi out there who have already made lots of eco-upgrades in your lives. (Even if you are a Jedi, make sure you can check off all of the ones in the beginner list!)
And we would LOVE to hear what you have planned for this year! Please share your ideas in the comments section so that we can all learn from you.
We wish you all a very healthy, safe and prosperous 2009.
For the Light Green, Aspiring Jedi (May the Force be with you!)
1. Put your outdoor lights on motion sensors. Do you need to light the night and burn all of that electricity? No, but you do want safety. Motion sensors are the answer. You’ll save energy and money, too. And if you want to go a step beyond this, you can get LED lights—which are ultra-efficient. Check LED lighting out here.
2. Wash your laundry in cold water. We swear it works! Washing machines are major power hogs in our homes and using cold water is a great, easy way to reduce your energy use. (If you want to go a step beyond this you can even start to air dry your laundry. This will help your clothes last longer and save even more energy. Find great drying racks here.)
3. Take reusable grocery bags to the store. This one is so easy and I still can’t believe how few people do it! Reusable bags will cut down on the use of over 500 plastic bags per person per year (and don’t forget plastic is made from petroleum) or save a slightly lesser number of paper bags. One 15-year-old tree only yields 700 paper bags! You can find reusable bags here.
4. Start using renewable energy at home. There are several ways you can get on board with green power. Many utilities now offer green power alternatives for a nominal monthly fee. Check with your local utility to see if this is an option. Click here to learn more about buying green power from your utility.
5. Make sure you’ve swapped out all of your light bulbs for energy-efficient models. Most people don’t realize that lighting accounts for 15-20 percent of a home’s energy use. So there’s a major opportunity to save money and electricity with better bulbs. Compact fluorescents use 1/4 of the energy and last up to 10 times as long as normal bulbs. And LED lights are 2-3 times as efficient as compact fluorescents. And they come in all shapes, sizes and colors–find them here.
For the Green Jedi
1. Join a CSA or plant an organic vegetable garden. Why not make this the year that you decide to eat the freshest, healthiest, most local produce you can? You can either join a CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) program and get your produce from a local farmer, or you can go a step further and grow your own! Planting a vegetable garden will fill your kitchen with yummy produce and cut down on the carbon emissions from transporting the vegetables you normally buy. Click here to read our useful guide to starting an organic garden of your own.
2. Read your newspapers online. Or just convert to online for your weekday editions and keep your weekend papers to enjoy with your Sunday coffee. You’ll save trees, energy, and money! If only 10 million people in the US cancelled their Monday-Friday newspapers, we’d save almost 50,000 trees each year.
3. Find a way to drive and fly less and cut your carbon emissions this year. Can you bike to the grocery store? Can you walk to the bank? Can you talk your boss into letting you telecommute once a week? Better yet perhaps you can talk your boss into creating a telecommuting plan for your whole department? Or propose that you have meetings via teleconference rather than flying. Remember that the emissions from flying are a major contributor to global warming. Click here to learn about other ways to spread the good green word at work– Learn more about how to green your office.
4. Install a programmable thermostat. These nifty devices allow you to micro-control your home’s heating and cooling. One of these can help you shave 15% off of your energy consumption (and save you money!). It’s really quite simple to install—will take you only 45 minutes. Find programmable thermostats here, and learn how to install them here.
5. Really investigate solar and wind energy options for your home. Many of us have told ourselves that we simply can’t afford solar or wind energy. (And this certainly may be true.) But incentives have gotten much better in some parts of the country and costs have also come down. If a full solar electric system is too expensive, consider a solar hot water system—which can be $4-6K to install and reduce your home energy use by 20-30%. Learn more about solar hot water here. And to get a quote on installation costs, you can find solar installers near you here and wind system installers here.
For many more ideas for how to make your home and lifestyle more eco-friendly, click here to visit our Green Projects page.
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