Green Manolo

Too often, green living tips either assume that you have an unlimited amount of space at your disposal, all the time in the world, and/or an unending supply of currency with which to eco-refit your life. Even I’m guilty of making assumptions about people who want to go green – how many people need winter cycling tips for snow day commuting… or a $250 handbag made out of recycled car parts… or even have the freedom to take the train instead of flying? Maybe the green movement really is only for fair trade latte-sipping Prius drivers?

Nah.

It’s for everyone, and here’s why: You don’t necessarily have to buy things you don’t really need to support the green movement. In fact, sometimes not buying something new is the greener thing to do. And while advertisers pitch being kind to Mother Earth as a thing you do with dollars, there are plenty of small lifestyle changes you can make that don’t cost a thing. Some green living tips can even save you money, either right now or in the long term! So if what’s been stopping you from taking the green plunge are your finances (believe me, I sympathize), it’s time to change how you think about going green! Here are 16 ways to make your life a little more planet friendly without going broke in the process:

1. Switch to energy efficient light bulbs as your old light bulbs burn out. The newer ones have a warmer, softer light that looks more like traditional light bulbs, so you won’t feel like you’re still in the office when you’re trying to unwind after a long day. And you’ll save money in the long run. It’s win-win!

2. If you have a baby, switch to cloth diapers. Yes, there’s an initial outlay of about $300 for fancy adjustable one-size diapers like BumGenius 4.0, but that beats the $3,000 you’ll spend on disposable diapers (and that’s per child).

3. Use the library. Turns out, some libraries are pretty well-stocked with daily newspapers, magazines, and DVDs… not to mention a lot of great books. That gets you doubly off the hook – no more subscription costs, no more rental fees, and no more bundling all that paper every other week.

4. Turn a few towels into rags and give up paper towels forever. It took me a while to convince The Beard that this isn’t gross, but really, it’s not. And you’re going to do laundry anyway, right? Rags work better than paper towels in a lot of situations. No kidding.

(more…)

There’s something so… comforting about nice, sudsy dishwater. It just makes the whole act of washing dishes feel cleaner. But are tons of suds strictly necessary to the process? Nope! And sponges, well, where to start? Besides being made almost entirely out of those omnipresent petroleum byproducts, they also have a tendency to harbor E. coli, salmonella, and staphylococcus. Just right for washing the things you eat off of, right? Ew.

So what are the alternatives? One somewhat more environmentally-friendly alternative that is certainly less gross overall is the Original Spaghetti Scrub, designed by Hiroki Hiyashi and distributed by Roland Products.

The Original Spaghetti Scrub, along with its gentle and specialized cousins, has a regrettable polyester base, but the rest of it is made of good stuff like cotton, corn cobs, peach pits, and walnut shells for those really tough jobs. They last a long time, which means buying less of them over time.

Obviously, you can’t give up dish soap completely – so use something green like Life Tree Dish Soap – but you can use a lot less with the Spaghetti Scrub since all the ground up abrasives do a lot of the work. And if you’re wondering what makes it less gross than a regular sponge, the answer is that it dries completely, quickly. No stewing in its own juices, breeding zillions of germs.

Lipstick’s initial destination is on the lips, but it’s final destination is often in the mouth. Likewise, some amount of eyeshadow and eyeliner will get into the eyes, powder that’s by the nose can end up inhaled, and even makeup that’s not near anything in particular can get absorbed into the first few layers of skin. So while cosmetics and beauty products are largely thought of as being for external use only, the fact is that those of us who wear makeup are eating it, breathing it, and getting it into our eyes. So I’d say yes, it’s worth the trouble and the expense to seek out cosmetics that are made with natural, organic ingredients that haven’t been processed too much. For those who only buy cruelty-free, there are even vegan lipsticks and eyeshadows that contain nothing that came out of an animal.

The only problem?

(more…)

A few weeks back, I shared 5 ways to go green at work, which reader Little Red reminded me isn’t always easy. Some companies like to update software overnight. You may turn all the lights off if you’re the last one out, only to find them on again in the a.m. when you’re the first one in because the cleaners turned them all on. Your office may not have a fridge for your bagged lunch or a coffee maker for your afternoon pick-me-up. And your choice of computers? Non-existent.

Where you have total control or almost total control is in your own home and in your personal life. In other words, in your time off. Since that’s your time to do with as you see fit – at least within the confines of your family life, if you have one – it’s a lot easier to go green! Here are five ways you can make your evenings and weekends more environmentally-friendly and physically healthy:

1. Replace you usual weekend activities – going to the movies, whatever – with something healthier and simpler. For the outdoorsy types, I recommend hiking, biking, or walking. These work especially well if you happen to have nature nearby, but even the city dweller can go for a long walk in the concrete jungle. Picnics are always good, doubly so if you pack food you’ve prepared yourself using organic, locally-grown ingredients. If spending more than a few minutes outdoors isn’t your bag, how about taking those ingredients and cooking up something yummy, then having a vegetarian or vegan dinner party for neighbors and friends?

(more…)

Walking aside, biking is the ultimate form of green transportation!. There are no emissions associated with people power – none that we’ll mention, anyway. While owning a car can cost $8,000 per year (think new parts, insurance, etc.) owning a bike costs around $400 – and that’s only if, unlike me, you’re getting your bike crazy tuneups and buying stuff for it. If you take all of the resources that make up a car, you could make at least 100 totally sweet bikes with all that stuff. And pumping those pedals is seriously healthy, especially if you go the extra mile and can commute via bike instead of car.

But hold up, let’s say you’re trying to live a wicked green life and you love riding your bike to work in the springtime, the summertime, and the fall. Wintertime biking, though? The idea sounds pretty crazy to those of us who would rather spend all day sitting under a heat lamp than go snowshoeing. Turns out, it’s not so crazy and plenty of people don’t stop biking to work – or anywhere else – when the weather gets icy. And for those who are inspired to give winter cycling a go, here are a few tips from Dave from Bicycle Habitat on handling your bike on winter streets.

Is decluttering green? That’s the question that popped into my head while I was reading a HouseLogic post entitled “Resolution: Put Your House on a Diet“, which advises paring down your collection of *stuff* for a better new year. Of course decluttering is green when you recycle what’s recyclable and sell or giveaway the perfectly good things you just don’t want or need. But is decluttering overall a necessary part of green living – as in, can one live a cluttered life while still following the tenets of an eco-friendly philosophy?

Some people argue not in favor of the cluttered life, but against the current societal obsession with organization that can be in and of itself not quite green. After all, if decluttering your home requires you to buy bunches of plastic storage bins and rooms of new furniture to accommodate your newly organized lifestyle, maybe you’d have been better off staying cluttered. Ditto if you can’t sort through your unwanted possessions without feeling an intense urge to throw everything out as soon as trash days rolls around or if are one of those people who finds themselves itching to shop until you drop after decluttering because there is suddenly so much space to fill.

On the other hand, there are plenty reasons to consider the act of decluttering part of a green and balanced and healthy existence. Having too much stuff that isn’t wanted or necessary forces some people to live in houses or apartments that are bigger than they want or can afford – and that can mean unnecessarily high heating and energy costs. Sometimes the old – as in, ‘out with the old’ – is itself unhealthy, like old baby bottles made with BPAs. Clutter is also in opposition to the part of the green mantra that suggests people reduce (along with re-use and recycle). And if air quality is something that’s important to you, decluttering your home means fewer surfaces on which dust and pollutant particulates can settle.

In the early part of 2011, I personally hope to make good on the Throw Out Fifty Things challenge, and I do happen to think decluttering is an important part of green living when done right. How about you? Do you get rid of clutter as a part of living a more eco-friendly life?

Image: MixedGrill

Boy, the last couple of posts have been downers. Greenwashing? The problem with carbon negativity? Huge islands of garbage? Bleah. It’s that kind of stuff that keeps some people from embracing a greener lifestyle. Not that it’s right – more knowledge is almost always a good thing – but there are plenty of people who, when confronted with a huge problem, would rather close their eyes to it than figure out how to become part of a solution. That’s when those green baby steps I mentioned on Monday come in handy… and one of my favorite green baby steps is re-use!

Re-use doesn’t always have to mean stuff like washing out plastic zipper bags or using a sewing machine to turn old clothes into smaller, less holey clothes or finding uses for every single coffee tin you’ve ever accumulated. Though, frankly, they’re all good things to do. Sometimes re-use means taking something that’s basically unwanted and turning it into something artful and beautiful that makes your personal environment that much nicer. Individuals can do this all on their own, of course, but not everyone is crafty by nature, which is why companies like Ghost Furniture exist. They specialize in making the unwanted into the coveted, and they do a pretty good job of it.

Right now, I’m lusting after this piece, which began its life as a dressing table mirror found in an abandoned house. Ghost Furniture added five delicate little vintage patisserie tins, a fabulously ornate vintage cake server, and two delicately decorated spoons, and painted the whole thing in a matte grayish taupe color that highlights the unique silhouettes of each object. If that isn’t a sweet way to re-use old kitchen accessories that aren’t pulling their weight at mealtimes, I don’t know what is. And even though this particular piece costs £175, I can easily see even a non-crafty person DIYing it with either things he or she had around already or little things found at garage sales and swaps for cheap.

Have you heard that Fiji Water is the latest company to find itself on the wrong end of a lawsuit for greenwashing? The water co. is apparently going to court for deceptively marketing itself as “carbon-negative.” As it turns out, Fiji Water’s self-proclaimed carbon-negativity is wishful thinking since, according to a US District Court class-action suit filed by a Newport, California firm, the company is giving itself credits for carbon reductions that haven’t actually been secured. Sounds interesting, right? But is it true? According to Mother Jones, Fiji Water has said in a press release that the offsets necessary to make it carbon-negative will not be realized until 2037.

Bah, it’s crap like this that made me say no to bottled water – especially bottled water that has to be shipped around the world to get to my mouth – in favor of the classic Brita Pitcher and a still-trendy stainless steel water bottle. Municipal tap is where it’s at.

Last week, I asked whether it was humanity’s moral obligation to go green, and a pretty big majority said yes. In fact, when I ran the question by my fairly conservative father, I was surprised to hear him agree that people need to think of caring for the Earth as a responsibility we all have, not something anyone can do or not do as the mood strikes. There was less agreement when it came to how to handle that moral obligation… should it be left entirely up to the individual and his or her choices? Should the government play a part in caring for the environment through regulation? (RFID recycling bins come to mind…) MarinaS brought up a good point in the comments, saying that lifestyle changes, innovation, regulation, and responsible consumerism should all be a part of going green. I wholeheartedly agree.

I also think, however, that this is where things get complicated for a lot of people who might support environmental stewardship as the responsibility of all people if it didn’t start to get overwhelming when you start expanding the scale of it all. Maybe it’s a tad intimidating – like it’s not enough that I recycle and compost and buy Fair Trade goods, now I have to vote for the right politicians and lobby for certain regulations and figure out how to support green energy when I can’t afford to switch to an electric car or install solar panels on my roof? That’s commitment right there, and I think commitment is difficult for a lot of people.

The good news is that going green is one of those things that’s easy to do on a small scale and feels kind of good when you do it, so people who start out doing a few things that are good for the environment end up doing a few more things and then a few more things. And when you’re suddenly living in a pretty environmentally conscious way, suddenly it doesn’t seem like so much work to suss out those politicians who support green legislation or to drive less and bike more and find ways to use less electricity. So while I think we should all be pursuing a greener world via as many avenues as possible, I’m totally okay with the idea that some people are taking green baby steps with short-term feel-good returns since those baby steps can lead a person in the direction of more knowledge and a greater level of commitment.

1. Solve the paper problem at your place of employment by starting a recycling program or encouraging people to use the one already in place. Some businesses are still printing things that don’t actually need to filed in hardcopy form, so consider why you’re printing that report or email next time you feel tempted to do so. Try using the .WWF file format when sending stuff to print-happy colleagues, and if you do have to print, use both sides of the paper.

2. Bring a mug to work. It sounds so simple, but little things like two paper cups of coffee a day can add up to a lot of trashed paper cups over time. Whether you have a coffee maker in your office or you’re stopping into the coffee shop downstairs, enjoy your brew in a real mug. Not a coffee (or tea) drinker? Bring a refillable water bottle instead of using the little plastic cups dispensed on the side of the big jug. Just remember to wash your mug and your bottle out at the end of the day.

3. Brown bagging it is not only a green option, it will save you money over time, too. Except skip the brown bag and the plastic wrap and get yourself a nice lunch cooler and a reusable sandwich bag or a fun bento box for leftovers. Yes, bringing your own lunch means you actually have to make your lunch ahead of time, but you may find that you’re so creative with your lunches that your coworkers look longingly at your eats as they dig into yet another round of deli sandwiches.

4. If you have a choice of computers, opt for a laptop over a desktop because laptops consume less power than a standalone tower and monitor. At the end of the day, shut down your computer before going home instead of letting it run all night in hibernation mode. Remember, that whole ‘it takes more power to turn on a computer than to leave it running‘ idea is seriously out of date. And while you’re at it, turn off the lights if you’re the last one to leave. You may not be paying for the electricity, but it’s within your power to stop people from wasting it.

5. Your morning and evening commute may just be the most environmentally unfriendly part of your workday if you drive to work solo both ways. Not all areas have a useful train or bus system in place, so mass transit may not be an option for you. But have you considered riding your bike if your commute is a short one or carpooling with a coworker if it’s a longer drive? There’s also ridesharing, where people from different workplaces sharing driving duties. And if you absolutely must drive in, alone, drive smoothly and make sure your car is well maintained.