Another month, another fresh start for reducing, reusing and recycling.
Anyone who wants to play along? There's no giving up TP or forsaking the fridge ... unless you really want to. The basic guidelines are below:
* No item is too small to be your Reduce, Reuse or Recycle. Perhaps this is the month where you decide not to turn on the AC until it's 85 degrees Fahrenheit. It counts!
* You don't have to jump in every month. If you do, cool. I would love the company, and welcome your tips and creativity and inspiration.
* You don't have to nail all three things -- Reducing, Reusing and Recycling -- every month. If you do, great. Because -- again -- I would love the company. But maybe some months, you're not up to thinking about how you really should forsake that carton of Fudgesicles for some frozen OJ (with the OJ procured from a local farm, natch).
* The point is for us to put our collective brains to use, get a mental grip on our material worlds, and see what our consumption tells us.
Okay, then. I'm going to start this month with a question from Molly, who asks:
How do you motivate the others in your life/house to join you in going green?
Please offer your suggestions in the comments. And if you're planning to reduce, reuse or recycle something this month -- share that too!
As for me ... this month I will be reducing my corn consumption. People who know me will be laughing their asses off, as I have not voluntarily eaten corn in 33 years. But I do benefit, directly and indirectly, from corn products. So I'm reducing my high-fructose corn syrup (handy, since I just scraped out the last of the peanut butter and jelly this week). And I'm reducing my red-meat consumption. It takes seven to eight pounds of corn to feed a pound of beef; the resource imbalance is a little breathtaking.
I will be reusing the water that I run each morning before my shower warms up -- it's the responsible thing to do, as we had a terribly dry winter and I have so many plants to water. And I will be recycling the crazy amount of styrofoam that I am currently stashing in my garage. Fortunately for me, there's a place in the Bay Area that will take it all!
I actually have one for this month. I've started reducing the number of catalogs I receive. I shop online fairly frequently and inevitably each site starts sending me print catalogs, which I look through and immediately recycle (if I'm shopping online, I'm good with the online catalog, thank you).
Many sites have a link that lets you fill a form to be removed from mailing lists. On other sites I've found the main email and sent a message. I haven't actually had to use the phone yet. Hopefully in a couple months my recycle bin will be a bit less taxed.
Posted by: Lauren | 2007.06.01 at 11:41
Ha! When I was talking to my sister about guilt I would feel re: moving to Phoenix and sucking the water table dry, she told me to stop eating meat and it would all even out.
For all my bitching about the tyranny of the local diet foodie trend, I bought a CSA share that delivers to my area but it won't start for another month.
Posted by: Kerry | 2007.06.01 at 14:21
I'm going to reduce the junk mail. I need to sign myself up on those don't mail me lists.
By last month I did switch to non-petroleum laundry, dish, & floor cleaners.
Tomorrow I will do my 1st attempt at riding a bicycle to the farmers market. Fresh veggies & exercise. I never did get comfortable with bike ridding as a kid, and so I'm going to relearn it, but stay on bike paths.
Posted by: Bureinato | 2007.06.01 at 16:59
I bought some nice big, sturdy, reusable grocery bags. (.99 each!) We haven't actually used them much for groceries - yet, but they sure are handy for carrying all sorts of things.
Posted by: Jane | 2007.06.01 at 18:10
Lisa, think of the ban on HFCS as an excuse to eat all the Haagen-Daas you want! (The vanilla ice cream, at least, has just milk, cream, sugar, egg whites, and vanilla. It's real food!)
I'm reducing my meat consumption -- right now I eat chicken once or twice a week, and I want to get it down to once or twice a month. (The strange part is that I have to plan for it: I'm going to a wedding in a few weeks, so that's one of my chicken servings for the month!)
I am reusing old envelopes from the mail for grocery lists and the like. This is mostly out of necessity, as all our notepads are packed away somewhere. Also, I'm reusing paper grocery bags for groceries until I manage to actually buy a couple canvas tote bags. (I suspect that the paper grocery bags won't last more than two or three trips -- they're pretty flimsy.)
Posted by: Becky | 2007.06.02 at 07:37
The corn ban is a good one. I will start paying attention to how much I am eating, and try to make other decisions there.
I will be implementing the green box recycling in our new place -- we're in a house now, and they do pick-up of organic waste and forcing my boyfriend to comply. I am also going to continue reusing/recycling all our packing materials as we upack here. As well, now that it's warmed up here I'm going to make as much of my food Ontario-based as possible. There's a nice local farmer's market that I'll go to once a week, and I've signed up for produce delivery every two weeks as well.
As for making people in your household make the changes you want to make, some of it has been made easier because I'm usually the one who does the household purchasing. So if I buy a particular product on its eco credentials, he's either got to use it or get something else. Usually he just uses it. Sometimes he's pleasantly surprised -- he made fun of the "hippie" mint shampoo I brought home for him, but now he quite likes it. He's a hard convert though -- price is usually his first consideration, so convincing him that these changes are worth a bit of a hit to our pocketbooks is sometimes difficult.
Also, he hates the new natural toothpaste. I'm going to have to find an alternative there.
Posted by: drunken monkey | 2007.06.03 at 05:38
I'm in. I'm going to at least drastically reduce my hfcs consumption. I'm also going to get out of the house on Saturday to make it to the Farmer's Market for fruits and veggies, and possibly their meat/poultry offerings.
I'm having a disposable diaper crisis of conscience, but I don't think I can make the switch to cloth. I pledge to investigate other more earth friendly options.
Posted by: Maxwell | 2007.06.03 at 14:36
Inspired by the Kill-a-watt summer challenge, we replaced over half the lights in our house with CFLs this weekend, switched out our air filter and set the AC at a higher temp.
Posted by: Stephanie | 2007.06.04 at 06:43
Drunken Monkey, you're in Toronto, right? I'm in Thornhill. What produce delivery service did you sign up with? I think I'd like to try that.
How do you know when you're getting HFCS? I haven't noticed it specifically. Is it the same as "glucose/fructose"?
Maxwell, The shopping bags (http://www.wnetwork.com/tv_shows/shows/the_shopping_bags/product.asp)
did a test on disposables, and the favourite was Seventh Generation. I've used them, they are a little more expensive, but they work really well and are as green as a disposable can get.
Posted by: Brona | 2007.06.04 at 07:05
You guys need to read "The Omnivore's Dilemma" By Michael Pollan. Here is the website: www.michaelpollan.com/omnivore.php.
It's eye opening. I'm not sure I'm glad I read it... but it did push me to think about every item I consume.
Posted by: Grace | 2007.06.04 at 11:22
Brona, with the high fructose corn syrup, it's listed as such on ingredients labels. Places I've found it: peanut butter, jellies, sauces, bread and other pastries, carbonated non-diet soft drinks, some fruit juices/drinks. Basically, it lurks in a lot of convenience foods. It's not the same thing as glucose/fructose.
(Also, technically speaking glucose+fructose = sucrose, what you and I know as "cane sugar.")
Since we're stealth hippies with the weekly farmer's market trips, I've been able to cut out some of the stealth HFCS by buying products there. I get a delicious, dense, dark wheat bread from Beckmann's Old World Bakery that's HFCS-free, and I get HFCS-free jams from Fontana Farms. And since my oregano is threatening to take over my herb garden in the back now, I have a feeling I will be making and freezing my own tomato sauce this month because I need to whack that herb back big-time.
Becky, I'm in awe of your meat-consumption vow for the month. I am going to work on getting us (and our palates) used to a diet where the default meat is white (or fishy) before going any further ...
Posted by: Lisa S. | 2007.06.04 at 13:31
Okay, is high fructose corn syrup different than just corn syrup?
Posted by: Brona | 2007.06.05 at 08:12
Brona, I went with Front Door Organics (http://frontdoororganics.com/index.html). There are a few other local options -- Green Earth Organics (http://www.greenearthorganics.com/), WOW Foods (http://www.wanigan.com/) -- but I chose that one because they let you choose a customized box. We get our first one tomorrow.
Posted by: drunken monkey | 2007.06.05 at 09:52
Brona -- yes. HFCS has been through additional processing to boost its fructose content. The corn syrup you see on the shelves in stores is usually glucose.
The biggest difference between glucose and fructose, near as I can tell, is that fructose is very very sweet. There's also some theorizing that fructose may lead to insulin resistance, which is generally not something you want to develop.
Posted by: Lisa S. | 2007.06.05 at 12:35
I second the recommendation for The Omnivore's Dilemma!
Lisa, I actually got down to that meat intake a while ago, but I've backslid recently due to time pressures. (It's much quicker to buy a non-vegetarian lunch out than to make sure I have vegetarian leftovers to bring to work.) I also occasionally eat fish, and now I've heard that some farmed fish are being bred to eat corn, so I guess I need to be more careful about what fish I buy.
Posted by: Becky | 2007.06.05 at 20:38
I haven't gotten much done , but it's not important. Not much on my mind lately. Today was a total loss, but so it goes.
Posted by: health | 2007.08.31 at 15:31