One Geek, One Earth

So Joy and I are getting ready to sell the house (which is why my posts have not been as frequent as I would like). In case you’ve never had to do this, the procedure basically involves making the house look like nobody actually lives there by cleaning it constantly and removing everything from counters, rooms, etc. You’re basically trying to make it easy for the person buying your house to imagine themselves living in it. This is a long and involved process that is going to take us another week or two.

For me, the move has a nice frugality effect. As we pack up DVDs and books and other knick knacks, we ask ourselves, “Do we really need this?” If we don’t, it leaves the house. We’re making good use of environmentally friendly options like the free section of Craigslist and Freecycle.org to give things away to people who want them rather than throwing them away in the dump. We’re also using the Clorox Green Works products I mentioned previously, and they are working very well, although we haven’t gotten to the serious test of bathroom cleaning yet.

Besides the frugality effect, I think the move also helps me out environmentally. This decluttering/pruning effect is good for me. Training myself to use and need less stuff helps me get out of the consumer cycle. That has to be good for me producing less waste. Plus, we’re trying to move closer to work, which will mean less driving, less gas spent, less pollution from my car, etc. Raleigh/Durham does not have a robust mass transit system, so cutting my driving distance is one of the few things I can do in this sprawled out town.

When we get closer to actually looking for a house, I want to blog some on what kind of environmentally friendly factors I’m looking for in the house itself - but right now, I’m so busy cleaning, I haven’t even had time to think about it. This will definitely be the last move I make for a long, long time.

Please note: This will be an exceptionally geeky post. Those with heart conditions may wish to look away.

Background: I play in two regular roleplaying games on Friday nights and Saturday nights. The Friday night game is very casual D&D. The Saturday night game is a more serious endeavor, although it is still a lot of sitting around and just having fun. But for a variety of reasons the current game we were playing has ended (it was a Serenity/Firefly themed game, for the curious) and I’ve taken over the gamemastering (GM) duties for some unknown length of time. This was short notice, so I’m still struggling to figure out what game I want to run. I’ve thought about a WWII superhero game or an Old Republic Star Wars game.

My friend, Jay, who is also a member of the game (and until recently the GM of the game most of the time) suggested that I should combine the research for this blog with my GM duties and do a superhero game themed around a group of superheroes that would handle environmental problems and natural disasters and such. This, on the surface should be something I would jump all over. It’s a good idea that would save me some time which is my most valuable commodity these days. But I found myself oddly reluctant.

Captain Planet, the hideous 80s cartoon

There are several reasons related to the game itself. First, the idea of an environmentally focused superhero group creates Captain Planet flashbacks, which can never be good things. Second, it becomes much harder to create villains - villains whose only motivation is to destroy the environment tend to feel kind of silly. It can be done, but it requires more nuance than I think I have. Third, how many times will the group have to rescue people from a tsunami before it gets old?

But the real reason that I didn’t take to it is that this blog is really about small environmental issues and about how I can change how I as an individual affect the environment. The kind of research I’d have to do for a environmental superhero game would be so big picture that I’m not sure how much it would cross over. There are plenty of blogs focused on big picture environmental issues. I think I’ll just stay small for the time being (and remain Galadriel [/LotR joke]).

Besides, this means my players get to fight Nazis or wield lightsabers. Neither of those options is ever bad.

http://www.breathingearth.net/

A rather neat little simulation that I Stumbled Upon - it shows the amount of CO2 every nation is outputting plus birth and death rates. Very well done.

I’m a budding cook and so I’ve been thinking about food a lot and how it relates to my attempt to go green. I am well aware that there are lots and lots of vegetarian/vegan options these days and that my choices in recipes would be fantastic.

That said, I have a hard time thinking about giving up meat. I love a good set of ribs or a well done chicken breast. This isn’t helped by reading debates on any of the environmental sites. In fact, it almost makes me want to dig in my heels more. More so than any other environmentally related debate, the fight over whether to eat meat reminds me of a religious debate.

Debater 1: Well, I know that eating meat coming from the industrialized food industry is wrong. But I think humans are omnivores (cite evidence here) and I get all my meat from locally grown sources.

Debater 2: Well, we’re not omnivores, we’re herbivores and we should be eating solely plants.It is healthier for us and we don’t

Debater 1: What about the fact that there has never been a solely vegetarian society in human history? And that you have to take supplements to get some elements necessary for the human body when you’re on a vegan diet?

Debater 3: But how can you support killing other living beings for food when there are perfectly acceptable plant options! It’s wrong!

And that’s where the debate breaks down. There are lots of smart, well reasoned people on both sides of the argument, but once it becomes a fight about whether killing animals for food is morally wrong, there is nothing to be gained. Each side entrenches itself (”It’s wrong!” “No it isn’t!”) and you can lather, rinse, and repeat for the next time it is debated.

Regardless of which side you’re on, I think it makes good sense for the environment to eat as locally as you can (and in theory, as seasonally as you can). I’m hoping to get to a point soon where I can afford to increase the food budget a little and work on getting the somewhat more expensive local options, both for my veggies and for my meat.

Reference: http://www.ncchoices.com/ - For those of us in North Carolina, this is a good resource to find out where you can buy local meats. Southern Season and Whole Foods are both carrying products from local farms.

I have 2 cats, Merlin and Galadriel (no, I am not in the least bit geekish) and despite them being trouble what seems like 80% of the time (and sleeping the other 20%), I love them dearly.

Merlin

Galadriel

So as part of my trip down Natural Products Lane, I’ve been searching for alternative litter choices. Joy and I had been using Tidy Cats, but it has a lot of random chemicals and such in it. However, it has two strong points in its favor:

1. It works. A lot of litter we tried either didn’t clump very well or didn’t suppress odor very well, and since their boxes are in the closet of my office, odor control is key.
2. It is cheap. A lot of the more exotic eco-friendly litter we looked at was ridiculously expensive. World’s Best Cat Litter, for example, ran at $19.00 for a 17lb bag. Tidy Cats basic litter runs $5 for a 20 lb bag.

However, I think we have found the one that fits our criteria: Sweat Scoop Natural Litter.

Per their website:

“Swheat Scoop is an all-natural scoopable litter that’s made from naturally processed (non-food grade) wheat. Its natural wheat enzymes work continuously to eliminate odors, no matter how many cats you own.”

The cats like it, it clumps very well, and it doesn’t raise those hideous dust clouds that the clay litter did. It is flushable, the cats haven’t been tracking it all over the house (an added benefit) and it is reasonably priced. At PetSmart, a 40lb bag runs 21.99 which is not hideous (55 cents per lb). While it isn’t as cheap as Tidy Cats, it helps that we need to use less to get the same effect and it certainly doesn’t break the bank like World’s Best. I can recommend this litter without hesitation to any cat owners looking for an effective litter that also happens to be environmentally safe.

The recycling “center” near me is not exactly newbie friendly. Newspaper and magazine containers are clearly marked, but the glass container has long since lost its label. The plastic container has 3 places to put plastic, but one seems to be for bleach bottles, one for milk bottles, and then one for everything else. And there is a cardboard container that is clearly marked “Corrugated Cardboard ONLY!!!!!”.

Here’s the issue - I had no idea how you defined corrugated cardboard. Was everything that was generally brown and had that paper texture to it cardboard? Did the box need to have the ubiquitous recycling symbol on it? What was this mysterious paperboard product that kept coming up? I felt like running around the house like a chicken with its head cut off.

At first I thought that paperboard wasn’t recyclable (if it can’t be recycled at my center…) but some research corrected that quickly.

• According to the city of Durham, paperboard can be recycled as mixed paper. Mixed paper includes phone books, white paperboard (white dry food/material boxes), brown paperboard (cereal boxes, paper towel rolls), white and colored non-standard office paper (construction paper, card stock, tablet paper), soft cover books, and folders. Mixed paper cannot include adhesives (envelopes), wax-coated paper, plastic-coated paper, or plastics or metals (spiral binders, plastic folder covers, paper with plastic windows). It also cannot include anything contaminated with food. The public often refers to paperboard as cardboard even though it isn’t. So unfortunately, I think I’ve been gathering a lot of stuff (plastic coated paperboard) that can’t be recycled.

• Corrugated “cardboard” is a strong, versatile packaging material that is universally accepted for recovery and recycling. Corrugated cardboard is made from two strips of flat cardboard on the top and bottom, and a wavy “corrugated” or fluted strip running through the center. It is most commonly found in boxes used for packaging and shipping items.
  

So, I have less stuff to recycle than I thought, but I did learn that my nearby recycling center is generally inadequate. If I was living in Durham or Raleigh, there would be curbside mixed recycling. But thankfully, Durham maintains a bunch of recycling centers, one of which is close enough to be doable. I’ll need to go check it out and see if I can do mixed paper there.

Sometimes your workplace can seem like it is in an entirely different universe from your home. That makes it much easier for someone like me who is still learning to change his habits to fall out of them when I get to work and back into them when I get home. So I’ve made a conscious effort to try and be better about being eco-friendly at work.

Turn off your computer and accessories

For the longest time, I kept my work computer on when I left work because I liked being able to come in the morning and get started right away. Now I turn the computer, monitor, and printer off when I leave and I find something else to do with those first few minutes of the day. I create a daily to do list that helps keep me focused, but you could get that morning coffee, catch up with coworkers, or anything else that takes a couple of minutes. It certainly doesn’t have to be idle time.

Keep your paper use low and recycle

It can be very easy at a well equipped workplace to be printing scads of documents. My big flaw was printing out email that had lists of webpage changes. I liked not having to switch being the window with the email and the window with my web page editor. Now I’ve raised my screen resolution and found a way to scrunch the two windows next to each other. If you can’t stop the printing habit, make sure to recycle what you use. This is actually easier for me at work than at home - the recycling center at home doesn’t have a white paper recycling bin, strangely enough. And if you get a chance, look at corporate documents and see if any of them could be distributed electronically rather than via paper.

Dump the plastic kitchen utensils

My workplace has a fantastic kitchen area and they even have a free soda fountain downstairs. But they have plastic cups, plastic utensils, paper plates, and all sorts of other things that are too easy to use and abuse. Get in the habit with me, as I start bringing my utensils and buying a drink container to use so I can dump the disposable cups. It also helps to give up the soda and just drink water. Healthier and I won’t have to wash my drink container anywhere near as often.

In the restroom

“If it is yellow, let it mellow” doesn’t really apply in the modern work restroom, where everything auto flushes about 3 seconds after you’re done. While there isn’t much to be done about that, what you can do is start using hand sanitizer rather than washing your hands (unless of course, they really need to be washed). It saves water (a big concern here in North Carolina) and it also saves either paper towels or the energy used for a hand dryer. If you’re part of a small business, just go ahead and buy it yourself and if you’re part of a large organization that doesn’t provide hand sanitizer, talk to your facilities manager about making some available. Just make sure that the sanitizer is greater than 60% alcohol, or it won’t be effective.