10 posts tagged “sustainability”
It’s my latest crazy-making thing: bottled water. At a recent work conference, I think they went through four cases of the stuff, and I had no control over it. Had I control, it would not have been there in the first place. I was trying to figure out how to get a point across to people about the futility, frivolity, and wastefulness of bottled water without sounding like a crazed hippie, and when I could not figure out a non-preachy way to do it, I said nothing and just stewed.
Here are a few facts about that lovely bottle of Dasani, Aquafina, Fiji,
Poland Spring, or whichever brand you choose to lug around with you, for
whatever reason:
- It’s estimated that it takes anywhere from 6 to 24 times the water in a bottle of water to create a bottle of water.
- The UN estimates that if the world took ½ of what it spends on bottled water (100 billion annually) and invested it in water infrastructure and treatment, everyone in the world could have access to clean drinking water.
- The EPA has more stringent quality standards for tap water than the FDA has for bottled beverages.
- 40% of bottled water is tap water.
- Only 14% of plastic water bottles are recycled, and a plastic bottle in a landfill will take 1,000 years to biodegrade. Incinerating them releases chlorine gas and ash containing heavy metals. 40 percent of the bottles that are sent to recycling are exported, consuming even more resources.
- PET (polyethylene terephthalate) bottles (plastic #1) are intended for single usage and some studies have shown that toxins from PET #1 bottles can leach into the water. These bottles are also derived from crude oil, consuming even more fossil fuels. Simply making the bottles consumes 17 million barrels of oil a year, which could fuel more than 1 million cars.
- 1.5 billion barrels of oil are consumed each year to produce the plastic used for water bottles (the equivalent of fueling 100,000 cars for one year).
- Tap water arrives at our homes through an existing infrastructure that is energy efficient, while bottled water has to be transported using fossil fuels.
- Water shortages have begun to occur around bottling plants in Texas and the Great Lakes region, threatening farmers and fishers.
- Dasani is owned by Coca-Cola, Aquafina is owned by Pepsi, Poland Spring is owned by Nestle.
- Bottled water can cost around $10.00 a gallon, which is more than a gallon of gas.
Get your annual water quality report from your local water service, which will tell you what contaminants are in your water and at what levels. My water here in St. Paul, for instance, is pretty good. Learning what is in your water can help you to make informed decisions about what kind of filtering system you may want to have, if any. Then get yourself a nice stainless steel water bottle, and bring your water with you wherever you go.
I mentioned a pet peeve of mine a while ago, and never addressed how I have handled it. Call it take-away, to-go, take-out, however you please, but the packaging makes me crazy. There's nothing you can do with it once you have eaten what was in it. It's usually Styrofoam or waxed cardboard or plastic, and none of them are easily recyclable. When we go out to eat, we bring containers with us in case we have leftovers, and I have a set of utensils in my purse at all times. That said, we have also chosen to go to the restaurant rather than order food to go. We had luck with one local restaurant allowing us to use our own containers for take out as well, although I don't know if this is actually allowed.
My portable utensils and container are fabulous. I want to name them. This happens with any Thing I love. I have a little food processor I use to make pesto every summer and fall when the basil is ready, and that Thing still needs a name. I get wistful when I use it. The same goes for the products I have purchased from To-go Ware.
I have the utensil set and the stainless steel container. They have a list of their retailers in case you want to check them out in person, and I saw them first at the Living Green Expo 2007. I highly recommend them, and I use them a lot. The last wedding I went to had disposable everything. Had I known, I would have brought my own plates (I am not kidding). As it was, at least we did not have to use plastic flatware. At Pete's recent work cookout, we used the free Frisbees they were giving out as plates. Now I have to remember to put a couple of cloth napkins into my purse as well.
People notice it when you do these things; they often ask or comment, and then they think about what is happening around them. I find this works better than telling people that they should change. Lead by example.
I am still waiting for that sustainable pizza box, though.
Oh come on. You can't use those words without an obligatory James Brown riff.
We met with Kurt from Shelter this afternoon at the house. I can tell you this now because we are all set. We have made a decision, and while I don't like to say "I won," because it was not a competition or, god forbid, a game (I dislike organized fun), well... I won.
We won.
After Kurt left, Pete said "You were right." No prompting. I hate to perpetuate the stereotype of the woman always being right (or having to believe she is always right), but there you have it. I did not ask; I did not say anything.
But I'll go back a little bit.
Shelter was the first firm with whom we met, back in April. I wrote about it. We loved them then, we love them now. I feel absolutely confident about our decision, even relieved and happy. We have chosen, and now we can move on. I think it's going to be fun.
The plan, as it stands, is to meet with a builder they have recommended, finalize the design deal (you know, papers and money and stuff), then get crazy. With ideas and designs, that is. We are looking at October-November for this phase.
Wow. It's almost like being a grown up.
Sometimes, when I get home and check my mail, it does not even make it into the house. We have recycling bins on the porch, you see, and there are days when nothing in the mail is real. Those advertising circulars that are bigger than my neighborhood newspaper? In the bin. Random catalogs? Bin. The credit card and insurance offers go into a bag inside the back door to be used to start fires when we cook out. But I tell you, we will never grill that many burgers.
Today, I filled out the Direct Mail Association's Mail Preference Service three times: once for my new name, once for my old name, and once for my husband. It's a dollar a shot (I know, having to pay to get off a list you never asked to be on seems counter-intuitive, but this is America, and there you have it), but I hope to see a reduction in those advertising mailings.
As for the credit card and insurance mailings, there's the option to opt out as well (again, with the "when did I 'opt-in?'"). This service is the "official Consumer Credit Reporting Industry website to accept and process requests from consumers to Opt-in or Opt-out of firm offers of credit or insurance." They want to convince you to not opt out because it's in their best interest to get you to have more credit, not less (see the documentary "Maxed Out", and be prepared to be appalled), but I think that you are all savvy enough to seek out what you need, when and if you need it, and can afford to nix pre-approval offers from your mailbox. I checked it out, and it does seem to be legitimate: the FTC links to them, and I also found a number of independent blogs reviewing the service as well as its legitimacy. It feels a little freaky to put in your social security number, but I just played guinea pig for you. We'll see what happens.
There are a few companies who offer to do this for you, for a fee, and donate the cost, and I thought about it. But it was difficult to verify the legitimacy of one of the organizations, and the other cost even more, so I decided to do it myself and put the extra money toward more pints in Ireland.
The next thing to do will be to watch my mail. It will take weeks, probably around six or more, to see a change, at which point I will start contacting companies directly. There are also the mailings that say "Consumer" or "Occupant" on them. The way I understand it, most of those are bulk mail that the post office delivers to everyone, and that it is nearly impossible to get off of these lists. One general recommendation I read was to mark your change of address card as "temporary" whenever you move. This won't stop the "Occupant" mail, but it can help with other junk mail. Co-op America also has this advice.
October 1-7 is "Junk Mail Awareness Week" (who knew?); I figured I would get a jump on this.
I just realized that I have been talking about my house, but you have not yet been properly introduced.
In order to do this right, I'll start at the beginning...
My memory of house shopping is not unpleasant. I drove by dozens of houses and actually walked into seven. Then I bought one. I made an offer, it was accepted, and I had no doubts. I knew when I walked into my house that it was my house. The others, nice as some of them were, did not "speak" to me. They say you will "know" when you find your house, and in my case, this was definitely true. It may not be the house you imagined; it may not even be pretty, but it's yours, and you love it.
Speaking of not pretty:
You both see a thing as it as and as it could be. The trick, throughout all of the changes, is to retain the love you first felt for it because that was what drew you in.
The awnings came down, some of the crazy foliage came out, and I had this:
Next came the porch. I wanted one. Three season porches are, well, they are ridiculous. The name is misleading, first of all, especially in Minnesota. You cannot use this space for three seasons, nothing like it. And when you can be outside you want to be OUTSIDE. The enclosed porch closed the house off to the street and the neighborhood. I wanted a porch I could sit on, wave to my neighbors from, read Harry Potter on.
A little bit of paint, many more plants, and here we are today, getting ready for the big changes:
The architect for the last firm we chose came by yesterday, and she was great. The interior work that this company does is spectacular; they have their own cabinetry people, and... all I can say is... droooooool. This firm has been doing this for the longest in the Twin Cities. They are a design/build co-operative.
She brought pictures on her fantastic old Apple laptop, and her paper was used on both sides; she walks the walk. She took pictures, really looked around the house, and gave us an idea of numbers, which was helpful. Our upstairs would probably run 50-70K (over 100K with dormers), that their kitchens tend to run 60K, and that they figure 7-10% of construction cost for design. The photos she had really got us wanting to do the kitchen--you start to see the possibilities and get excited; it can be hard to stay focused. This is my grown up version of building a Barbie World under the ping-pong table. Only now I don't have to use fake fur, Kleenex, and staples.
I hope.
We definitely liked her and the work that the firm does. We also met the site manager at the Living Green Expo, and we think we would like working with him as well. She's going to get us a proposal in the next couple of weeks.
Every year, Minneapolis/St. Paul has a "Living Green Expo." It's fantastic. We go every year, and this past weekend was no exception. It's a two-day affair at the Minnesota State Fairgrounds, and it consolidates green professionals and businesses from Minnesota and near-by, generally, although there are some "national acts" there. It's an excellent resource, not just for homeowners, but for consumers in general. We had a chance to say hello to the architects and the design/build company we met with and "prescreen" the design/build firm that is coming by on Wednesday evening.
It's jam-packed--I think they stopped counting attendance at 20,000--which severely limits the amount of time I can spend there. A couple of years ago, I read the statistic that they finished the event with ten thousand people and only 35 pounds of trash. The rest was recycled or composted. This is comforting to me because it's getting harder and harder for me to go places like theme parks or food courts because of the waste.
Which leads me to my sustainablity pet peeve of the week: take-out/food containers. There's nothing to be done about them, most of them are styrofoam or plastic, and they are making me crazy. The only thing to do is to not get take-out and "doggie bags." I know, this is not about green remodeling, but it's all about living sustainably, so this is a good place for me to bring it up. I wish I could walk into a restaurant and give them a container to fill, but that's not possible due to health codes, so I just have to stop. Go to the restaurant and eat there, and only order what I can eat while I am there. It sounds like a teeny little thing, but giving up pizza delivery/take-out?
This should be interesting.
p.s. we can go to the moon, but we can't recycle a pizza box that has cheese on it?
What does it all mean? What are the roles? Where do I fit in? Can’t I just take a nap?
It’s a little mind-boggling, at least it was to me, but I am wading my way through it. And as I don’t have what it takes to nap, I don’t have that option.
Basically, here’s the deal:
Are you just changing around the look of a room and not
making any structural changes?
You need an interior designer.
Are you adding space and/or making any structural changes to
your home?
You need an architect.
What the heck is a “general contractor” then?
A “general contractor,” sometimes called a “builder,” manages
the project and oversees subcontractors such as plumbers and electricians. Some
homeowners choose to be their own general contractors, but they are often in
the building industry themselves and have the time necessary to devote to the
task. If you want to work or have a life or finish out the process with your
marriage, hair, and criminal record in the same shape (or better) as they were
before you started the process, don’t be your own general contractor.
What’s “Design/Build?”
Design/Build firms streamline the process. At a design/build
firm, you get your architects and designers and builders all in one place.
There’s one company to contact, generally one architect and one site manager
who you deal with. Basically, it’s one-stop-shopping, and it sounds really appealing
to me.
It’s best to start green. Choose people who already promote sustainability and who understand green building principles. You don’t have time to educate everyone. In green remodeling, your choices may be limited. We want to go with a design/build firm for the ease of the situation, and as we have choices in green builders, we are lucky. But after two meetings, one with a design/build firm and one with an architecture group, we are leaning toward the architecture group. We have one more meeting, and once we have an idea of services and costs, we will evaluate the proposals and make our decision. Our current “lean” is based on the relationship we feel we could have with them as professionals and as people. The second firm we met with is good—I don’t have any doubts about their skill or intentions, but the personality might not be as good a match. Not to say that we are young and weird, but… we are young and weird. And we’re not really all that young anymore, comparatively, but that’s an issue for a different journal.
We’ll see how the third meeting goes on Wednesday. In the meantime, I have to look over the proposal from the architects and request one from the design/build firm. This next meeting is design/build as well.
...there was a house.
It's a little house in the Midway area of St. Paul, Minnesota.
I have owned it since May of 2001, and my now-husband moved in two-and-a-half years ago.
We love it.
I love it like it's a member of the family, which, when I think about it, it really is. Perhaps the most important member. It's our shelter, our structure, our focal point. Our lives operate from it, and those lives would be different if we owned a different house.
When I bought it, it was a brown the color of last year's chocolate Easter bunny. It had aluminum awnings and a screened-in porch. Inside, it was covered in carpeting and paneling and the trappings of a mid sixties decor. Not much had been altered in forty years.
It was ugly.
I was home.
I tore out the carpeting and redid the floors and mostly painted the garage and the house. I have not done a lot since then, though I have wanted to. Within the past year, Pete (husband) and I began to think about starting on remodeling projects. I took a continuing education course at the University of Minnesota called "Make Your Old House Green," and we had the instructor, Richard Huelskamp, come and check out our house. Then we stalled out for months. I guess wedding planning got in the way. It can do that.
We have finally gotten started again, and now we are serious. We're all married up, no babies yet, and it's time. We are doing a sustainable/green remodel which will incorporate renewable energy systems. I want to keep track of the project because I want to give real people an insight into this process and show that it is possible. Of course, as this is just the beginning, I might be crazy; but then again, crazy could be useful too. It is my intention to update this as we move along. Questions and comments are encouraged, as I am in this to both learn and teach.
And we don't want to do this alone!
Upcoming: evaluating your home, finding an architect/designer, getting resources.
