Water Conservation

shawnaree
Lately I've been doing a lot of thinking on the topic of water conservation.

Here are some of the things I've implemented in my life that I find helpful when it comes to saving water (and energy!):

1. Taking shorter showers. As it is, I only shower about every three days (it's better for your body, in my opinion), but when I do shower, I sometimes even go so far as to turn the water on, get nice and sopping, turn the water off, soap up, turn the water back on and rinse. Saves hundreds of gallons of water a month.

2. Not pre-rinsing my dishes before I put them in the dishwasher. This is a hard habit to break, but according to a lot of research, it uses much much less water to use the rinse function on the dishwasher. Here's some more tips related to dishwashers: http://www.aceee.org/consumerguide/dishwashing.htm#tips

3. Re-use water. This sounds silly, but... have you ever gotten a glass of water and not been able to finish it (either because you don't want to, or there's a cat hair or something in it that makes it unappetizing)? Well, what else could you use that water for-- watering plants, washing your hands, etc.

4. Turn off the faucet, and get that leak fixed. The average leaky faucet wastes around 10 gallons of water a day. Use this link to figure out how much your dripping faucet costs you: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sc4.html Running the water for an extra 5 minutes at full blast, while you brush your teeth, can be greater than that.

5. Catch your extra water. I don't do this, but during the drought last summer (in NC) one of my coworkers did this: she took a plastic bin/tub, and put it in her tub. She would 'catch' the water that would normally go down the drain that was still clean (for instance, while waiting for the shower to 'warm up'), and use it to water her plants/lawn. But you could use that water for a lot of things!

Anyway, just a few thoughts.

ETA: Also, this is /really/ interesting. How much water does it take to grow a hamburger? How about a car? http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/sc1.html

CupKozy

Note from MK: This post was self promotion. But I am going to go ahead and re-post it over here anyways, because self-promoting environmental products is a good thing. I have found that D.I.Y.ers are good businesses to buy from, local or not.

agentaeonfiux

Hi, my name is Dinah and I just joined. I love seeing communities like this popping up all over LJ! Interest is growing and it's only a matter of time before we see some real results :)

I have a tip for those of you who are hooked on coffee, especially the people who visit places like Starbucks, Coffee Bean, Etc. every day.

Fact: Americans consume over 14 billion cups of coffee wrapped in disposable sleeves every year! Some coffee shops even practice the notorious "double-cupping".

I handmake an eco-friendly alternative to the disposable sleeve called CupKozy. If you're not quite ready to commit to using a thermal mug (I know I'm having a hard time with that), this is a super easy way to help reduce the amount of waste being generated.

For those who DO use thermal mugs, you are precious and few. On those days when you just plain forget to bring your mug home and it is now fermenting on your office desk and you have a paper cup emergency, don’t grab one of those disposable sleeves. You know the contraptions that keep you from burning your hands on that cup of essential morning elixir. Grab a CUP KOZY

You can also find me on Etsy :)

Thanks for all the green tips in here. Keep them coming!

Composting ideas

Missdotti
I live in an apartment with no way of doing any gardening aside from maybe some small planters on my window sills. But I hate that I have all this lovely stuff that I can use for composting and it would end up going to waste. So I started a compost bin with an old coffee can. Whenever it's full, I give it either to my parents or to a friend of mine. They both have large gardens with compost piles and really appreciate my little contributions. As a thank you, they'll often bring me some veggies from their garden.

I was thinking about this in the shower this morning and I realize that many of you might not have friends or family nearby that could make it easy for you to give the compost to them. Especially those of you who are newly transplanted to where you are. My solution was FreeCycle. I have used it successfully to trade of any number of things I don't need, and I thought "Why not compost stuff?" I'm sure SOMEONE in your area could use it. Give it a try.

Check the codes

Marykae
From a book I am reading "Green Living"

Look at the PLU on your produce.

If it starts with a 9, it is organic
If it starts with a 4, it is conventionally grown
If it starts with an 8, it is genetically engineered.

Say no to paper plates

Me:

Last night I had some people over for a game of Apples to Apples.

Even though a couple of my plates are plastic and kind of embarrassing, and even though I have only a few sets of matching cups, I refused to buy paper plates and plastic cups. I also used my own non matching forks. Some of my cups were even re-washed cups from the Chevron station.

No one complained and if they thought less of me for it, they said nothing.

The one thing I did not consider were paper towels/napkins. I ended up having to steal some napkins from my boyfriend. (he only keeps them so he can grab a handful on his way out the door because he blows his nose a lot).

I think I will do what was suggested in the past and buy real napkins. It may surprise people when they ask for a paper towel and I hand them a cloth napkin. But I can always take the opportunity to explain that I rarely use disposable anything.

There was a glass Sobe bottle left over that someone brought. I will be washing that and re-using it. Mostly for carrying water when I am out and about.

Anyway, that is my small contribution to the environment this weekend!

Apartment Recycling

From: fortytwostars

Okay. Recycling when you live in a house and have everything-in-one-bin curbside pickup? Easy. Way easy. I never really appreciated it until it was gone. Now that we're in an apartment with no recycling service (LAME), we have to sort it ourselves and take it to a recycling center. Fortunately, there's one about two minutes away from home, plus another right by work if the need arises. UNfortunately, recycling bins take up a lot of space if you have to sort things, and SUPER unfortunately, we have a teeeeeeeeeeeeeny tiny kitchen with no room for ANYTHING, much less four different bins.

But yay for my subscription to Ready Made.
I got THIS idea while flipping through an issue a few months back.
It's easy, it's light, and it takes up no floor space at all.

We have a few more bins than the one in the magazine because our recycling center accepts a LOT of stuff that has to be split up. Ours is also slightly more heavy duty, simply because we used the materials we could find in one trip rather than running all over town.

From the middle hook on the top there, we hang a plastic bag to collect plastic bags, which our local Kroger recycles. We do use cloth bags, but, yeah. There are forgetful days. Plus, Kroger accepts almost ALL overwrap and plasticy packaging, so we take that in, too.

It was a teensy bit of work to put together, but it makes recycling in a small space MUCH easier, and it's especially nice that it doesn't take up valuable room. The bins can be washed out in the bathtub if we forget to rinse something well enough and it leaks on the bottom, plus we have the lids for the bins off to the side to keep things from flying out if they're in the back of the truck.