My little "green" book

Some guys have "little black books." Not me, thanks to my youngest, Laura, I have my very own "little green book.

Laura gave me this handbook for Christmas. It's a pretty informative book. It's loaded with tips about Green living. What I truly appreciate about the book is that most of the examples are simple and fit with the focus of this blog: average people doing simple things to be responsible tenants of planet Earth.

Now, Laura regrets giving it to me because I've been spouting the details and statistics that are in the book. I can't help myself, they're cool. Hear, listen to this and tell me that it isn't cool:
recycling 1 aluminum can saves enough energy to power a television for 3 hours! Is that not cool?

Being a single, lazy guy, I was ecstatic to find out that it is more Green to use a dishwasher to clean up my kitchen than to wash the dishes by hand! Oh Yeah!

My recommendation, take a swing by Barnes & Noble and pick up one of theses helpful books.

Another "Two Green Thumbs" Award

Today, Going Green is hip. Many businesses have realized that Going Green can bring in some green, so they've started selling reusable shopping bags and providing recycled products. I applaud this.

Occasionally though, a store looks beyond mere profit or at least direct profit and behaves in a way that marks it as a responsible tenant of planet Earth. For this reason, I'm offering my second
"Two Green Thumbs" award to Publix for this:





Egg cartons and plastic bags can't be recycled through our local sanitation commission, so this is great. I especially like the plastic bag recycling. We still use loads of these bags and those that aren't reused in our homes end up either stuffed under the kitchen sink or appeasing our local landfill's appetites. These bins are a step in the right direction, so let's encourage this behavior by using them.

Merry Christmas

To you and yours from me and mine...



Have a very Merry Christmas!!

A "green" Christmas idea

Are there things I can do to have a Green Christmas?

Some would say buying an artificial tree would be a start. I say...Bah Humbug!! It's a real one or it's nothing. The tree I bought was planted and raised for this very purpose and I re-use it through a Greenville County program to make mulch or fish habitat in local lakes.

Not wrapping the presents came to mind, but my whole point in this blog is that I believe we can live our normal lives with only slight changes and still be responsible residents of Planet Earth. I know saving wrapping paper once you unwrap a present and using it later would be a great idea, except for the fact that I'm a big kid when it comes to opening presents, so the pile at my feet on Dec. 25 is only fit for the recycling bin.

As I came home from shopping Saturday (remind me to never do that again) I noticed the colorful bags I was carrying and that's when it hit me. Why not use the bags to wrap some of the presents. The 2 gifts in red you see above are wrapped courtesy of a Macy's bag and the 2 in blue owe their garb to Barnes & Noble. Pretty snazzy wrapping duds if you ask me.

So there's a new idea for me. Anyone else have any ideas?

A Meeting of the Minds

Well... nothing so grand as that. This post is simply about where frugality meets going green.

For most of my life I have been concerned with saving as much money as possible to help my mother make her paycheck stretch a little bit longer. Now that I have had a job... even though I temporarily do not have an income right now... I want my own money to stretch just a little further.

Now, I do things that many members of my family think a little bit extreme. In my defense they should take a look at some guy whose name I can't remember at the moment who goes so far as to wash his paper towels, hang them out to dry and use them again. He even when he goes out to eat ask people at the table next to him if they are done with their food and eat that. I definitely do not recommend his actions but there is a middle line to be found.

I'll list out a few things that I do. For instance, when I have sun chips I will put them on a paper towel. Instead of throwing that paper towel away I will use the towel to wipe my fingers off on when I eat my lunch. If I do not use the paper towel at lunch I will keep the paper towel on the table to use later in the day.

Also, I am reading the Harry Potter books in Spanish to increase my vocabulary. I will write down the words that I do not know on a piece of paper. Instead of getting a new piece of paper each time I will use paper that I have written on perhaps one or two times thus making sure that those scraps of paper do not go to waste.

I could go on but that would most likely be quite boring. Perhaps in the future I will talk about other things I do but for my next post I will talk about ways that I will practice going green in the classroom.

Introduction

After many weeks of hounding I have finally shown up to post to this blog. After all, the trip is my graduation present. :D

For right now I will simply introduce myself and in the coming weeks post on going green by accident... something I am becoming increasingly more enthusiastic about.

I am 23 years old currently on Christmas vacation in between the last two semesters of my MAT program. Lord willing by next August I will be in my own classroom.

As my family can attest I am quite frugal by nature. When I analyze this frugality I notice that many aspects end up being green as well. For instance, to save money I always use plastic baggies at least twice before I throw them away. I could detail other instances of how I reuse things sometimes to the point of insanity in the eyes of my family. :D

Lord willing, in the next few weeks I will go more into detail about different ways to go green, specifically in the classroom.

Not In My Back Yard!

In Cherokee County, South Carolina, a familiar, but sad fight is heating up. The fight is over a proposed new landfill. The company that is building and maintaining the new landfill, Waste Management is proposing a site that does a lot of environmentally friendly things and the battle is not over them, but the basic concept that folks don't want to live near a landfill.

This battle screams to me of a reason to recycle that doesn't require a person to care if "Mother" Earth gets pampered. At the Council meeting where Waste Management presented the details of their plan, one facet of this landfill commanded my attention. The landfill will cover 75 acres when it opens for business with an projected expansion to 300 acres. What a huge increase in loss of land to trash! The property that is being purchased spans 1,500 acres. Will it stop at 300 acres?
Here is a concrete example of how recycling can have a direct impact. The more items recycled, the less landfill space needed. I know personally, that since I started recycling, I have reduced my trash placed in the dumpster by over half. Now, there are probably 6-8 other residents here where I live that consistently recycle. Add their "trash savings" to mine and we have a tiny spot in the land around the landfill that doesn't need to be introduced to trash. Now, imagine the land space that would go unused if all 54 town homes in my community consistently recycled? Here is a very definite thing that the average joe can do that will have a obvious positive effect.

And you folks in Cherokee County, fill up those recycling bins if you want to avoid a new land fill, or at least keep it small.

A fun "Green" product test

This is a Toyota Prius and it belongs to the company that owns the property I manage. It's also the vehicle that I got to drive on my Thanksgiving trip to Grandmother's house.(OK, it was my mom's house, but the song says Grandmother and she is a grandmother). I work for a GREAT company. They lent me the Prius for the trip.

Let's address the Green aspect first. I drove 1710 miles from Thursday evening to Sunday evening. I drove from Greenville, South Carolina to Buffalo, NY and back again, over flatland, and mountains, through rain and snow, in light traffic and in traffic jams that made traveling 10 miles take 2 hours. The average mileage for this trip would have been around 20 mpg. The Prius got an average of 44 mpg. I spent $65.00 instead of at least $120.00 in gasoline. So the main Green ingredients are lower fossil fuel consumption and then by extension, less harmful emmisions. The car has a great system of energy creation and use. I would say that if anyone is wanting to make a big change to be more responsible for the planet they are borrowing for a few years, then switching to a hybrid car would be a great place to start.

But suppose you're an average guy and you're not all worked up about "Saving the Planet," should a hybrid be on your Christmas wish list?

YES!!

Ok, so your not hyper to Go Green, still I assume you like saving green? I paid close to 50% less on gasoline on this trip. Close your eyes and image spending half as much on gasoline. Now stop smiling and check out a hybrid. The Prius handled well, drove like a charm and had great features like hands free calling with your blue tooth working through the audio system. It also has a built-in navigational system. You can see the energy conversion and track your energy consumption at any time. When I think about purchasing a vehicle, functionality, price and mileage are the criteria I value most and the Prius won on all levels.

To be fair, I will point out a few drawbacks or concerns.

First, price, I did a quick check and $22k+ is their starting point, so it is a bit expensive. My daughter pointed something out to offset that sticker shock. She said, that with the savings you are recieving from better mileage, you could offset the added purchase cost.

Second, I'm kind of tall and the back seat is not a great place for me to sit, as my head attempts to create a sun roof. Even in the 4 door, which is what I drove, the leg room in the back is not a winning observation. The front has plenty of leg room and the car was comfrtable to drive.

Finally, maintenance is complicated. If you buy a Prius, prepare to tell Bubba and his ball peen hammer goodbye. The days of the shade tree mechanic fade away into our story books as more hybrids are made because they have the duel engines and the different energy transferring systems.

My recommendation: someone give me a hybrid Prius PLEASE

Two Green Thumbs Up

In my last post I joked about giving out an award to folks who find creative ways to go Green. I was joking about the doctor, but I am serious about recognizing folks who find ways for average people to live naturally, but responsibly.


My first, Two Green Thumbs Up award recipient is:

Remember those clothes you have stuffed in the back of the closet, or the pup tent hiding in the far corner of the garage, you can liberate them from their place of exile and give them new life. You simply post a message on freecycle with what it is you no longer need and no longer wish to cram into the back of the basement. Someone sees your ad and contacts you to make arrangements to pick it up and in no time, you've taken you closet back, someone else hasn't wasted their money, and the landfill stays hungry.

Remember those ice packs and cardboard boxes that I've mention in a few posts? This is how I "reused" them. You'd be surprised at the items people give away.

So take a look around your home. Do you really need that? I mean, it hasn't seen the light of day since MTV played music. Go to freecycle.org and let someone else enjoy what you have finished enjoying.

Here's one way to reduce landfill deposits

This is a doctor's office. No seriously, a pediatrician works out of this office daily.

I think it's time to start giving out awards for the creative ways ordinary folks go green.

So the first recipient of the Going Green By Accident Appreciation Award is:

Dr. "I haven't found a piece of paper I felt I could throw away EVER." pediatrician and paper lover.

Congrats!

Cleantech Blog

This blog:
http://www.cleantechblog.com/

has some very insightful posts on environmental issues. The author seems to have a level headed approach to the subject as well as a wealth of knowledge. You will find some very interesting and useful information here.

If you have any sites that you would recommend, please let me know. I will post the ones I find esp. helpful.

"Green" Product Test, stage 2

Remember These?


In my last post about the "green" floor care products, we looked at the "green" floor products effectiveness in the initial use, the actual stripping and refinishing. As you recall, I was impressed with their performance. I was excited, but the shine has to last, that is the ultimate test. "Did the "green" product hold up over time?" I was unable to get to these floors to buff them on their normal schedule...every other week; these floors didn't see a buffer for over a month. I will leave it to you...did the eco-friendly finish retain it's shine?

A "Green" Road Trip.

View Larger Map
You can slide the map around to see the whole trip, simply click and drag,


This is where Jeni and I will be May 15-31, 2009. This is the trip I referred to in my second post. When I was talking to a friend about the trip and mentioning that I wanted to take an environmentally friendly road trip, I asked him how he thought I could make it "green". He said, "Don't drive" I understand what he meant, but this is the whole point of this blog. I want people to realize that you don't have to stop living your normal life in order to take care of this planet. I believe it is possible to take a road trip, yes, in a car, and still be eco-friendly. Obviously, a hybrid or something along those lines would be a natural first step. So if you have a Prius lying around, look me up.

I'm looking for ways to be "green" on this trip, any ideas?

You want to re-use those?

No, I'm not suggesting that we use previously used medical instruments. These items were never used. The item on the left is a mouth guard for pulminary testing. The one on the right is a dropper. One of the ladies at the doctor's office where I do some work is a fan of re-using and recycling. When the office has an excess of a certain item, they usually throw the excess away, but since she and I have talked about this blog and are both more conscious of what we send to the landfill, she has left the excess items for me. A consistant example are the ice packs I mentioned in a previous post. Last week, she was in the office when I got there and pointed me to a rather large box filled with those mouth guards. She suggested that an artist might like to create a masterpiece of modern art or maybe someone could find a use for the filter in the middle of the device. She was convincing, so I now have a box of pulminary testing mouth guards in the back of my van.

Now what? Well, my youngest, Laura is in the art department at NGU, so she took one back to school with her the other day. I haven't heard anything back yet, but we shall see.

What I love about this is that I am challenged to rethink how I view the world around me. I don't just see the obvious, but look for the hidden or obscure. An empty 5 gallon wax bucket is no longer an old wax carrier, instead I see a flower pot, or traffic cone, or tool box. The empty 16oz plastic water bottles are not simply recycling bin fodder, but become incorporated into a flourescent light fixture curtesy of a design show on Bravo TV. Cardboard boxes relieved of their intial burden no longer seem destined for a trash bin, but thoughts of movers and Ebay fill my head. This is a great way to view the world. I encourage everyone to do this.

Let's start with the items I posted a picture of above. What can you see these being used as? Give me your ideas, no matter how outrageous they seem.

Then start suggesting other items and let's see if we can come up with alternate or second uses for them.

Let's challenge ourselves to switch from a disposable society to a re-usable society.

I did it!

I had victory over my environmental Achilles heel...



reusable shopping bags.

Ok, you can stop laughing.

Three weeks ago, while shopping at Wal-Mart, I decided to purchase a reusable shopping bag. I patted myself on the back as I unloaded my few groceries from the landfill-saving bag. I neatly folded the bag and placed it in a spot by the door, so I would remember to take it with me on my next trip to the store.

A week later, as I was placing my groceries on the counter for the cashier to ring up, it dawned on me that my wonderful "green" bag was resting serenely near my front door. I bought another one and resolved to work harder to use these bags.

Once I unloaded the groceries, I put the bag in my van on the dash. Now, there would be no way that I would forget to use my alternative to "Paper or Plastic"

Three days later , it was time to go to the store again and as I drove from my job, I glanced over and saw my bag and smiled. When I pushed my cart to the check out line, my reusable bag was laughing at me from the dash of my van. Once again, I paid to "Save the Planet" this time with a pink bag, a breast cancer research fund one in honor of my mother and her 2 years of cancer free living.

Today, I summoned all my resolve and determined that those memory blocking pieces of cloth would not get the best of me. I collected all of them and laid them on the passanger seat in the van. A quick job and I was on my way to get some groceries. As I drove, I thought through the wording of this post. I was pushing my cart down the main aisle, when I passed a rack of reusable bags and realized that my growing family of environmentally friendly grocery bags were still in the van...ARRRGGGHHH.

But, I went out and got them and as the picture shows, I won. I used them.

I said you can stop laughing.

"Green" Product Test

One of these aisles was stripped with traditional floor stripper and covered with traditional floor finish, the other was refinished using Green Products:






Can you tell which aisle is which?

Don't feel bad because it took me a minute to remember which picture was which.

One of the areas that moved me toward being more environmentally responsible was my work in refinishing tile floors. I have used the same techniques, chemicals, and methods for years. Around the same time I decided that recycling was a decent idea, I started realizing that my methods and chemicals were not helping keep my world a decent place to live. I saw an ad in a janitorial magazine for "Green Logic" products, so I called and asked if they might have a sample. To my pleasant surprise, they sent me 16oz of stripper and 1 gallon of finish.

I got to use them tonight on a floor that I maintain, so I will be able to watch its durability over time and traffic.

I really should have listened in science class because I couldn't explain how the floor stripper works. I only know that the GreenLogic stripper appeared to be as effective as the regular stripper, with an unexpected benefit: low slip factor. For those of you not spending your late nights making other people's floors shine, let me explain. When you apply the stripper compound to the waxed floor, the wax separates and makes the floor extremely slippery. Tonight, the Green stripper removed the finish, but left us sure footed.

The Green finish provided the same level of gloss as the traditional finish and and the application felt smoother.

I have to admit, I didn't expect these results. When strippers were changed years ago, the newest items just weren't effective. This time it appears that they might have gotten it right.

Seems like it's time for a more intense test, so I need to see if these products are economically feasible and try them on a larger area and perhaps a tougher floor, but for now, I am impressed.


(oh, the picture on the bottom went Green!)

That Was Easy

This past Thursday Greater Greenville Sanitation Commission delivered the recycling bins I requested for the town home community that I manage. I'm impressed with our County's commitment to recycling. Beyond setting up about a half dozen drop off points around the country for folks to leave their recyclable goods, they also have an individual home owner benefit across much of the country. The bins you see above are given 1 to each home owner with instructions to deposit paper goods, cardboard, plastic bottles, and cans. The owners simply place the bins by their trash cans on trash day and the County does the rest. They don't even require you to sort the different types of materials. They sort it on the truck.

When I inquired about having the service here at Addison, I was originally told that because my community is serviced by a dumpster, the individual bins was not an option. After a few conversations , I received a personal visit from the residential recycling director. We worked out a few details and he agreed that we could join this program.(It helped that their collection truck/trailer used our parking lot to turn around in)

Now we have the bins and I can't see how it would be any easier for people to recycle here. They fill up the bins during the week, then on Thursday night, they set the bins outside their front doors. Friday morning, the guys drive by and empty the bins.

That was easy!

I know that not all communities have this option, but I would recommend that you speak to whoever picks up your trash for what recycling options are available. If there are none, let's work on creating some. I am looking around the country to see how municipalities are encouraging recycling. My goal is to help us all recycle. If you have any ideas or want to tell us about how your community works, please leave us a comment.

Reuse, the neglected middle sibling of the Green family

How many of you can go to the kitchen, either your own or your mom's and find stacks of
Kool Whip bowls waiting patiently for the leftover beans or mashed potatoes? How many of you can find assorted screws, nuts, washers and bolts filling baby food jars or jelly jars on your dad's or your work bench? Do you have some old magazines stored in an old milk crate or garden tools resting in an empty 5 gallon paint bucket?

As you raise your hand to these questions, pat yourself on the back because you have been "Going Green" and you didn't even know it! Lots of folks reuse items, not to "Save the Planet", but because it just makes sense.

It used to be that Americans reused things on a regular basis. We repaired an slightly damaged item because buying a new one seemed decadent and wasteful, and for most of us, too expensive. As our society has become a consumer society, we have become a "disposable" society as well. Instant coffee and disposable razors have changed our mindset to the place where repairmen are becoming an endangered species.

We need to hold on to whatever item we are about to drop in the dumpster or recycling bin for just a few seconds and think if there is any way we could reuse this potential landfill fodder.

I clean a small medical research clinic and they have a lot of cardboard boxes that they discard. Now they are thinking about the environment because they put all that cardboard into a dumpster headed for a recycling plant. One day, as I was carrying an armload of boxes to that dumpster, it occurred to me that instead of throwing these perfectly good boxes into the recycling dumpster, perhaps there were folks who might need a good card board box. I began collecting the boxes, all different size and advertised them on freecycle.org, a web site dedicated to reusing. Within days, I had given away over 20 boxes. One man sold things on ebay and needed boxes to ship his merchandise. Two other couples were moving. With almost no effort, those boxes got an extended life. This clinic also receives their medicines in containers that are full of ice packs, very nice, long lasting ice packs. These were ending up in the landfill until recently for the same reason. People always need an ice pack for their aches and pains or for their tailgating cooler.

My reason for talking about my experience with reusing is to show that reusing items is simple, if we just take a moment to think before we dump. Now I find myself looking for new uses for all my trash.

I challenge you to take the time to try to do just one of the three words in the Green mantra. You will find that once you start, it becomes easy and you find yourself reducing, reusing and recycling like it is natural.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle

Those are the three words traditionally associated with Green living. The last word of that trio gets the lion's share of media attention and recycling is what most people think about when they think of what they can do to be Green. Recycling is indeed something we all should do, but we can't neglect the first two words of the mantra.

Reduce
When I hear that word, I think of buying pallets of potato chips and giant sized cans of soup. Buying in bulk is a great way to reduce the amount of trash we have and it is often an even greater way to keep some green in our wallets, but I think we need to look at the concept a little differently. America is a consumer society. Buying THINGS is almost as American as hot dogs and apple pie. Now, don't get me wrong, I like nice new shiny things, and the latest technological gadget catches my eye. There is not anything intrinsically wrong with purchasing things, but perhaps, we could slow down the shopping cart just a touch. It wouldn't kill us to pause for a brief moment before we buy the latest fad item and remember the closet full of 'Thigh Masters' and 'worn-only once' shirts, ties, skirts, etc and place our wallets back in our pocket or purse once in awhile. I think if we took stock of what we possessed, truly inventoried it, we might see the wisdom of not buying something else that in a day, week, month or year will end up on the top shelf of the back bed room closet, or the back corner of the garage, awaiting the day we send it to its final resting place...the landfill. We might see that we don't need to spend $20.00 for that metal rack to display the Reader's Digest and National Geographic magazines, when the old brief case we were about to toss in the trash serves as a functional and artistic alternative.

The other reason for this blog

This is my first born, Jeni, as she graduated with her BA in History.

And this is the graduate on the road trip that was my graduation present, DC & NYC.


What started as an attempt at a creative graduation present when Jeni finished high school has become a tradition. After each scholastic achievement, my gift to her is a road trip. We love these things.

Now, she's in the middle of her Masters in Teaching program and we're planning our next road trip. She decided that she wants to see as much of our great country as she can. I mapped out a couple of courses that would include the maximum number of states. I had to scrap most because I do have a job and a month's vacation is not in the benefit plan. We've settled on what promises to be a great trip. We'll visit some 25 states spanning the entire country, Cajun country in New Orleans, the Heartland of Oklahoma and Kansas, the Great Northwest of Oregon and Washington, the Rockies Mountains get crossed twice, we see both Dakotas and the home of the Cheese heads.

As I was planning this trip, I calculated the cost in gas alone, and let's say that a defibrillator was not too far away. I joked to myself that I needed some sponsors. Of course, that was a joke, until I thought of a great hybrid car ad; something like "Our hybrid crossed the Rockies twice in the same week!" I have to say that sounds like a great ad. OK, it needs some fleshing out. Once I accepted the idea of sponsors, I ran with it. It dawned on me that a blog chronicling our preparations for the trip, and esp. keeping a daily log of pictures, video clips and words describing our wonderful country might interest folks and if folks are regularly reading this blog, some businesses might decide this would be a good venue for advertising.

"But what is going to get folks reading in the first place?" was my main question What about a blog that lets ordinary folks see that doing ordinary things, very American things, like taking a road trip summer vacation, while being "green" is easy. Given my new found interest in normal folks being good caretakers of our planet, this made perfect sense.

So there you have the other motivation for this blog.

Going Green By Accident

Ok, maybe turquoise and maybe 'accident' is not the right word. How about 'without planning.'

Let me explain.

I'm not a tree hugger, or a Green Peace hero. I don't 'Save the Planet' on a regular basis, but awhile ago, I came to the realization that conserving energy, and not trashing the big blue ball we call home were probably good ideas.
Not wanting to do anything radical, I made a couple simple changes. I bought a pack of those curly fry looking light bulbs, bought a battery charger and rechargeable batteries and got a bin for recycling from my local trash man. The recycling bin is what put me on the path to "going green by accident".
Here in Greenville, the Sanitation commission will recycle plastic bottles, cardboard, and paper. I got my bin and started separating my trash. The first week, I had very little in the bin when it went to the curb on Friday.
Tonight, two weeks later, when I set it out, I realized I might need another bin. Now, I'm not drinking more soda or unpacking more boxes. What I have discovered is how much we actually throw away and how so much of what we call trash could instead be recycled.
Yesterday, I finished a box of Kashi Autumn Wheat cereal(which by the way is right tasty) and started to drop the box in the trash can, when it hit me that the box is cardboard so I can recycle it.
Ok, now before you think, "Duh!" I just had never thought about the box. It was my cereal container and when it didn't hold cereal, it served no purpose and what do we do with things that hold no purpose? We throw them away.
So the cereal box led to paper towels which led to memo pads.
So I recycle more now, but it didn't stop there.
The other day, I needed to write down a phone message and my note pad was nowhere to be found. What was in front of me, was a roughly torn open envelope holding my power bill. I grabbed it and wrote the message on the back.
Then I took the bill out and left the envelope by the phone to take other messages instead of simply chunking it in the trash and buying a new memo pad.
This led to me thinking twice about how I can use scrap paper, or partially written on paper. I realized that I waste a lot of paper.
I'd scratch a number on the front of a note pad sheet and then throw it away or the fax machine would print out a report telling me why the fax didn't go through and into the trash it went.
Now, I use it all up and then throw it away...in the bin.
I've even gotten other people recycling without bull horns or After School programs, just example.
When a friend who works with me stopped by tonight, his 3 yr old son dropped his soda and spilled what was left on the ground, so my friend made sure the can was empty and then walked across the parking lot and dropped it in my bin. He did this, not because he's buddies with Al Gore, but because it is becoming a habit he's picking up from being around someone else who is doing it.
So my little efforts are having positive results, maybe not cooling down all this global warming, but a little step in taking care of our home.

So let's all trip into some Green