Day 59 of our Green Year: Green Shopping

Welcome to Day 59 of Our Green Year, only one day away from two months!! So, for this day, we are going to be going green with our shopping. Already we have gone green by only buying local food and making sure it is organic, but there are other ways that we can go green with our shopping.

I would like to thank Mother's Going Green (http://www.mothersgoinggreen.blogspot.com/), who offered several awesome tips on how to go green with your shopping. So, Layla and I are taking the steps ensure our shopping is green, and that goes well beyond bringing cloth bags to the store.

First, we are going to shop less like our friend at Mother's Going Green. We will only be shopping for things when we need to, and when we do it will only be a local store. This means that unless we can't avoid it, no more Wal-Mart for us.

The other way we are going green with our shopping, and this is the most important one, is we will only buy items with minimal packaging. This goes from the food we buy, all the way to anything else.
Excess packaging is everywhere in our lives. When we buy food like Pizza Pops, they are put in a box, and then in individual plastic wrap. Is this necessary? What about Swiffer Sweeper? This product is built on not having a reusable mop that you can use for five years. Instead, you have to keep buying packages of individually-wrapped sweeper pads.
According to some estimates, while we are urged to increase how much we recycle, the amount companies waste in excess packaging has increased by 12 percent since 1999! We are talking about items like plastic that can take 1,000 years to break down, and once we rip the packaging to get our product we forget about it in the garbage.
Think about this. A total of 35 percent of all the waste in landfills is from packaging! That is a lot of waste that does not need to be there.

Therefore, from now on Layla and I will only buy products that are in cardboard boxes that we can reuse. We will only buy other products in jars that we can also reuse. If we have to buy something that uses plastic, we will either recycle it or turn it into something we can use. If you wonder what you can use the CD plastic wrap for, well if you take it off carefully, attach it to the to of a bucket and poke a hole in the middle (make sure it slopes down to the hole), then you can collect dew in the morning to use on your plants.

Thank you to Mountain FM who did an interview with us today about Our Green Year, as well as Shaw TV, who are planning on speaking with us next month!

The message of Our Green Year is spreading. Thank you to everyone who comes to our site each day and I hope we are helping to make a difference.

Day 57 of our Green Year: No more cans

A few weeks ago, Layla and I committed to recycling nearly everything we could. This included pop cans. When you recycle pop cans, you save about 60 percent energy that it takes to make them from scratch.
However, recently, we began to think about the pop cans themselves and the harm that may be caused to the environment by buying things like pop cans.
As a result, we are committing to eliminating pop cans for our life. The reason we chose to do this is two-fold, and it has to do with our own health and the environment.

First, the environment. When aluminum cans are made from scratch, it has to use aluminum that is processed from the Earth. This is VERY energy intensive, so it contributes heavily to greenhouse gases, and the mining itself destroys local habitats.

The second reason is our health. While we are not doctors, we recently chose to buy only natural personal care products to keep harmful chemicals out of our lives. Well, aluminum is the main component of cans, and some studies have shown that Alzheimer's Disease can be caused by aluminum. Now, we are not saying it does cause it, or that if you use aluminum cans you will get Alzheimer's or Parkinson's, but we are not taking the chance.

This is why we are going to begin making our own drinks (stay tuned for making your own soda this week) and keeping it in reusable containers.
If you do use aluminum cans, please remember to at least recycle it!

If you can, check out a great website called Tree-Nation (www.tree-nation.com), which will let you buy your own tree and become the guardian of that tree. If you can't plant a tree, this is a good place to check out.
Also, Layla and I saw a news report last night about how the government is changing the designation of lakes across the country so that mining companies can dump toxic mine waste into the isolated lakes. This will kill the lakes, and despite what the mining bosses say "It is the safest way to dispose of it and we have many lakes", it is not a good thing to do. Over 50 lakes are already designated in such a way that they will be polluted with toxic waste. Read more about it here:
http://www.cbc.ca/canada/story/2008/06/16/condemned-lakes.html?ref=rss
Please join our Facebook group to help stop this:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=17741112868


UPDATE: Our garden is coming in great, and here are some pictures of the garden and the veggies that are coming in, including peas, potatoes, radishes and corn. Thank you to KBS Radio and Organic Living Magazine who interviewed us about Our Green Year. If you know of any media who may be interested, contact us at crwbaird@gmail.com and I will send you a press release.

Day 53 of our Green Year: Picking Up Litter

This is a really easy one for all of us. No matter where you live, you will find litter. It is a horrible reality of our disposable society. Instead of choosing to carry our garbage an extra block, we dump it on the road. Instead of keeping the garbage in our car until we are at a place to dispose it, we toss it out the window.

More than anything, litter shows the mentality of many of our species, who see the world as one big dumping ground, and not the beautiful oasis suspended in a sunbeam that it is.
However, there are those out there that hold onto their garbage and throw it out or recycle it. Those who care that our roads are clean and that a hike in the woods does not show us garbage instead of nature.

In that vein of thought, Layla and I are committed to cleaning up trash when we are out. From the littlest wrapper we find on our walks, to cleaning up larger items when we are out and about. I encourage all of you do to the same. If we take the time to clean up after ourselves, the world can be a very nice place.

The Earth is not a dumping ground. It is a beautiful place that we should respect. If we don't, then one day all that will be left of our civilization will be the garbage we chose not to recycle or throw away.

Do you have your own tales of picking up litter? Do you have photos of you picking up litter? Or just photos of the litter in your area? Send it to us at crwbaird@gmail.com and we will put it up here to show what others are doing to keep the world clean.

Day 51 of Our Green Year: Finding Glowing Solutions For Old Lights

No one really stops to think about what they can do with their old and spent incandescent light bulbs. Surprisingly, there are quite a few things that people can do with them instead of throwing them out or having them sit around the house collecting dust. Especially with the new laws coming in over the next few years, where some places are banning the use of incandescent light bulbs, there are going to be many people left with incandescent light bulbs that are not being used any more.

For the creative person out there, they can do more with their incandescent light bulbs instead of adding them to the garbage. Instead, they can turn them into cute and pretty decorations around the house in the form of small vases that hang in front of a window, cute little bugs with coloured water in them that hang on the wall or the window, or even as holders for bath salts in the washroom that hang on the wall.

Craig and I decided to turn a couple of our incandescent light bulbs into pink and purple bugs that could liven up our door that goes out onto our deck. After emptying the light bulbs, decorating them and filling them with coloured water, they turned out to be a couple of nice inside decorations with little effort.

Now, before one can do anything with the light bulbs, one will have to empty out the inside. This can be done by using a pair of pliers to pull off the metal end piece. Then, the dark plastic part is put over a flame to weaken the plastic and allow it to be broken apart. Then, after prying off the plastic, one will have to take something long and narrow and carefully break apart the inside tube. Once this is done and the broken bits have been taken out and disposed of, the inside of the bulb can be rinsed out with some water. Cloudy bulbs will become clear; some salt will help take the remainder of some of the frosting out of the bulb.

Once the bulb is empty, one can make just about anything they can think of, including,

a) Decorative bugs for the window

b) Bath salt holders

c) Flower holders (fake flowers can be used)

d) Decorations for Christmas, Easter or any other holiday

All one has to do is be creative and have fun! One note of caution, however, is to make sure that all stray glass pieces are vacuumed up so as not to have anyone cut their hands on them.

If you make something with your old incandescent light bulb, send a picture of it to crwbaird@gmail.com and we will put it up here!

Day 32 of our Green Year: Reusable Takeout

When you go out for something to eat and you bring home what is left in a Styrofoam container, what do you do with it? When you go to McDonald's or Subway, what do you do with the paper wrapping, plastic bags and more?
If you are like most people, you simply throw it away and before all of this, Layla and I were the same way. However, Our Green Year is all about changing the way we deal with our day-to-day lives and understanding how everything we do affects the environment.

So, as part of our Green Year, Layla and I have decided to do away with these containers. From now on when we go out for supper and there is food left over, it goes in a Tupperware container. When we go out to Subway, as we sometimes like to do, we will be putting the subs, without the paper, in the containers. Doing this can eliminate large amounts of waste in your home because you only use the paper, bags and Styrofoam for a few hours at most. By spending only $10 to $20, you can get the containers you need to never worry about how your food wrapping is affecting the environment.

You should probably get used to not having take-out containers, the Styrofoam ones at least. San Francisco has banned them out right, as has China, and I am sure the rest of the United States and Canada won't be far behind.

Thank you again to the Trail Daily Times for their wonderful story on us today. It is nice to see we can get the word out on what we are doing.

Remember, we will be posting pictures of our readers doing green things, so if you have any, send them to us at crwbaird@gmail.com and if you have any suggestions, let us know.

Day 26 of our Green Year: Limiting Our Showers

Wow, only a few days before we hit our first month of Our Green Year. Things are going well, we have our story in The Province (the largest paper in British Columbia) tomorrow, and we have been getting a lot of hits from Treehugger.com, so it is nice to be mentioned there as well.

Today, we decided to save some water, and the best way to do that is by limiting your showers. Typically, people will take a 10 to 15 min shower, and this wastes about 150 to 250 liters of water each time. Now, it is entirely feasible to have a shower, get yourself clean and wash your hair in five minutes, and when you do this you save 75 to 175 liters of water as a result. That may not seem like much, but here is a quick little lesson on water wasting:

• If you have a 20 min shower, you waste 300 liters of water. Multiply that over a week and you waste 2,100 liters of water. Multiply that over one year, and you waste 100,800 liters of water!
• If you have a 10 min shower, you waste 150 liters of water. Multiply that over a week and you have 1,050 liters of water. Multiply that over one year and you waste 50,400 liters of water.
• Now, if you have a five minute shower, then you use 75 liters of water. Multiply that over a week and you get 525 liters of water. Multiply that over one year and you will only use 25,200 liters. In fact, a five minute shower per day for a MONTH will use the same amount of water used in a 20 minute shower per day for a WEEK.
  

The water savings, which translate into money savings for you, amounts to 75,600 liters of water saved a year if you switch from a 20 minute shower to a five minute shower.
In our own house, we averaged 15 min showers, which came to 225 liters of water. Each day that meant we used 450 liters of water for the shower, which comes to 151,200 liters of water. Switching to five minute showers will save 145,800 liters of water each year here.

To ensure we follow this, we have bought an egg timer that will allow us to know when our five minutes is up.

Some more tips for saving water in the shower is to put a bucket in the shower with you. Let it fill up, then use that bucket to water your garden. Do not leave it in the shower if you are washing your hair or using soap.
You can also only shower a few times a week, like every second day. If you do that, you cut as much as 57 percent on your water.
Don't forget about showering together, that can save water too!

Day 16 of our Green Year: Recylcing E-Waste

As a former Information Technology graduate and network administrator, I have a few bits of electronics around my home. Old computers, old printers and the like. In the past, I have sadly simply thrown these items out. However, as part of our Green Year, both Layla and I have chosen not to do this anymore.
From this point on, we will be recycling our e-waste in an effort to take harmful items and chemicals out of the environment, and put old computers and other electronics to use as something else.

Currently, e-waste represents two percent of the trash in the landfills of the United States, however they represent 70 percent of all the toxic waste in America's landfills. As well, since China, India, Kenya and other third world countries don't have stringent environmental standards, e-waste is sent to them to process, often illegally. With the burning, disassembly and disposal of these items there, huge environmental and health problems result. The reason for this is that e-waste has large amounts of toxic items in them, including lead, mercury and cadmium. For example, a typical computer monitor is made up of six percent lead, usually in the glass. The lead and mercury can often leak into the soil and groundwater of these countries that handle e-waste.

On top of all this, e-waste is the fastest growing source of waste in North America, where only 11 percent of all e-waste is recycled. In one landfill in Vancouver, over 12,000 tonnes of computer equipment was dumped in 2004. E-waste does not decompose, so centuries after it was used, computers will still sit, with their chemicals seeping into the ground and air around them.

From now on, in our household we will recycle all our old electronics to eliminate this problem and we hope you do too.