Practical information for consumers on going green.
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Tuesday, December 02, 2003
Why Eat Organic Food?
It's not because of pesticide/herbicide residue that may or may not be building up in your fat tissue.
The most important reason to eat organic is to prevent water pollution.
Water pollution caused by runoff from chemically treated agricultural fields is called "nonpoint source pollution," as opposed to "point source pollution," which comes out of a pipe.
An EPA fact sheet titled "Managing Nonpoint Source Pollution from Agriculture" had this quote about runoff:
The most recent National Water Quality Inventory reports that agricultural nonpoint source (NPS) pollution is the leading source of water quality impacts to surveyed rivers and lakes, the third largest source of impairments to surveyed estuaries, and also a major contributor to ground water contamination and wetlands degradation.
To read the entire fact sheet, go to http://www.epa.gov/OWOW/NPS/facts/point6.htm.
An organic farm does not apply chemicals to control weeds or pests; thus those chemicals cannot get into the water supply from such a farm.
For other action you can take to prevent NPS pollution, go to another EPA page:
http://www.epa.gov/owow/nps/whatudo.html.
posted by Beth at 6:07 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Friday, November 14, 2003
Earthpak
Looking for a backpack made from recycled materials? Look no further. Earthpak is the answer: strong, safe, and made from plastic soda bottles. Go to
http://earthpakgifts.com/aboutus.asp
posted by Beth at 7:53 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Conservation for Teens
I just finished surfing a GREAT conservation website for teens, ibuydifferent.org. It has stories about what kids and teenagers have done to improve their local environment, including inventing asphalt made from recycled plastic bottles and starting recycling programs.
It has a page where teens can record their purchases (say, a recycled paper notebook) and calculate how much pollution they have prevented by buying that notebook. Go to
www.ibuydifferent.org
and click on "Buy Different."
posted by Beth at 7:45 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Sunday, November 02, 2003
Less Toxic House Cleaning Products
For years now, I have eschewed cleaners like 409 and Ajax and Comet for gentler versions---and although my kitchen sink may not always be as white as it used to be and I just can't get those grease spots off the inside of the oven hood---I am satisfied with a "green clean."
For some basic information on toxic chemicals in general, see this page on Environmental Defense's website (the group that was formed to ban DDT in 1967 and succeeded in banning it in the United States in 1972):
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/system/templates/page/issue.cfm?subnav=20
For information on several different brands of green cleaners, go to this page at the Center for a New American Dream website:
http://www.newdream.org/consumer/cleaners.html
The brands listed on this site avoid ingredients like ammonia and chlorine bleach.
And finally, here's how I do it:
1. When I want to clean my toilet, I pour some 20 Mule Team Borax in the bowl and swish it around. Then I let it sit for at least half an hour. Then I spray a general cleaner on it (Seventh Generation, Earth Friendly Products Orange Plus, or Lemon Maid Glass and Surface Cleaner) and scrub it with the bowl brush.
2. To clean my refrigerator, I take everything out, take apart the shelves, and wash all the surfaces with Seventh Generation dish soap and water. I don't want anything stronger than that near my food.
3. To clean the shower, I spray general cleaner on a sponge and wipe down the walls (or scrub them if there is buildup of scum) and use a nonabrasive cream cleaner for the floor. I use a general or cream cleanser on a toothbrush to clean grout that has bacteria on it.
4. Earth Friendly Products makes a very good furniture polish that produces a nice shine.
5. Seventh Generation makes a carpet cleaner, but I wasn't very impressed by it. However, Woolite Heavy Duty carpet cleaner didn't get the oil stains out of the carpet either.
6. I use Ecover liquid laundry detergent and have not noticed any difference between it and Tide or any other well-known brand.
For some information on why people think eco-friendly cleaners are not effective, go to Ecover's website:
http://www.newdream.org/consumer/ecover.html
For the Environmental Protection Agency's take on indoor air pollution (to which toxic cleaners like 409 can contribute), visit this page:
http://www.epa.gov/iaq/pubs/insidest.html
posted by Beth at 6:37 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Wednesday, October 15, 2003
Cheaper Light Bulbs
The Boulder [Colorado] Rotary Club is placing a bulk order for compact fluorescent lightbulbs, which save both energy and money in the long run.
Check out this site for information on the low prices and the benefits:
http://www.rotary5450.org/Boulder/Light%20Bulb%20Sales.htm.
We've replaced most of the bulbs in our house with compact fluorescents and haven't noticed a difference in the quality of the light. Our dining room chandelier does tend to make a low humming sound when we flick on the lights, but since we never tested it with incandescent bulbs, we don't know if this noise is caused by the type of bulbs used.
The first blog I ever wrote, dated December 31, 2002, gives prices on fluorescent lights bulbs, as well as other information. Check it out!
posted by Beth at 1:40 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Thursday, October 09, 2003
Sources of Colorado's Electricity
I received a flyer from XCEL Energy spelling out the fuel sources used in electricity generation in Colorado.
Biomass and waste produce 0 percent of CO electricity needs.
Coal-fired plants produce 69.7 percent.
Geothermal, 0 percent.
Hydroelectric, 0.9 percent.
Natural Gas, 28.1 percent (does not include natural gas used for heating).
Nuclear, 0 percent.
Solar, 0 percent (I question this figure. Does XCEL track solar panel use in Colorado?)
Imported, fuel source unknown, 0.6 percent.
Wind, 0.7 percent.
I highlighted the Wind entry because all the electricity my husband and I use is powered by wind turbines. We pay a premium of about $20 a month for the privilege of knowing that somewhere in the grid, there are about 800 to 1,000 kilowatt hours of wind-generated electricity for which we have paid.
You can help boost the percentage of electricity in Colorado generated from wind. Sign up for Windsource today.
Go to www.xcelenergy.com and look under residential service.
posted by Beth at 9:18 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Vitamin Cottage Savings!
I recently made another trip to Vitamin Cottage at 78th and Wadsworth, and I have more savings to report. (VC stands for Vitamin Cottage; KS for King Soopers.)
Lifestream Waffles: $2.35 (VC); $2.59 (KS)
Blue Sky cola: $2.29 (VC); $2.99 (KS)
Horizon plain yogurt: $2.45 (VC); $2.99 (KS)
Green bell pepper: $1.39/lb (VC); $2.99/lb (KS)
Red bell pepper: $3.99/lb (VC); $4.99/lb (KS)
Vitamin Cottage also has an extensive selections of vitamins and supplements, books, and paper products.
Go to www.vitamincottage.com.
posted by Beth at 9:01 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Thursday, September 25, 2003
Invasive Species
On September 20 I participated in a volunteer workday for a Front Range--Colorado restoration group called Wildlands Restoration Volunteers (www.wlrv.org). As a volunteer for this group, I've revegetated social trails (those trails people make when they don't feel like walking on the official trail or when there isn't an official trail), built new trail, and planted water-loving plants along streams to steady the banks.
I enjoy all this immensely, though it is hard work. On September 20 I decided to join the crew pulling diffuse knapweed, a noxious weed that is doing serious damage throughout western states. (Russian knapweed and spotted knapweed are also invasive in the United States.)
Knapweed is a 2 to 3-foot-tall, bushy plant that can be most easily identified by the spiky bracts from which the flowers arise. To see a picture, go to www.oneplan.org/Crop/noxWeeds/nxWeed06.htm. This site also provides links to information about other plants.
If' you are interested in learning what plants are invasive in your area, go to www.invasivespecies.gov and click on the link to Species Profiles.
posted by Beth at 8:23 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Thursday, September 04, 2003
Internet Action
Sorry, I'm not talking about porn. I'm talking about taking action to protect the environment online. There are many sites that enable you to express your views on issues. Here are a few I've used:
Conservation Action Network
Sponsored by World Wildlife Fund, otherwise known as the Panda People. Go to
http://takeaction.worldwildlife.org/
Action Center
Sponsored by Environmental Defense, the organization that was founded in 1967 to ban DDT in the United States. Go to
http://www.environmentaldefense.org/actioncenter.cfm
Global Response
This organization supports communities around the world in their efforts to protect their local environments. Global Response has a network of activists who write letters to government officials or corporate executives. They have an impressive track record. Go to http://www.globalresponse.org/.
These three action networks are my favorites, but there are millions of others. Try the RainForest Action Network (http://www.ran.org/), The Hunger Site (http://thehungersite.com), or the Forest Conservation Portal (http://www.forests.org/).
posted by Beth at 8:08 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Thursday, August 28, 2003
Greener Gold
If, like me, you are concerned about the negative effects that gold mining has on the environment, then you should check out the website for Green Karat (www.greenkarat.com). They make jewelry from recycled metals or metals mined in an ecologically friendly manner.
To get more information about the negative effects of mining, try the Mineral Policy Center (http://www.mineralpolicy.org/) or the Mineral Policy Institute (http://www.mpi.org.au/).
To get the gold industry's perspective, check out the site for the World Gold Council (http://www.gold.org/). There are many organizations that promote gold worldwide. Try the Australian Gold Council (http://www.australiangold.org.au/). You could also check out sites for individual companies, such as Newmont, which is based in Denver (www.newmont.com).
posted by Beth at 9:26 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Monday, August 25, 2003
Various Updates
Yes, it's true, I am a slacker at blogging.
Here are a few updates:
1. I finished ripping the wooden garden beds out of my yard. I took some of the wood pieces to Resource 2000 in Boulder, which said I could count them as a charitable donation on my taxes at about $3 apiece. So that will save us $200 or so on our taxes next year.
The rest of the wood (whatever was rotten or had split) I took to the BFI landfill off Highway 93. It cost me $30 to dump a truckload of wood pieces. I couldn't recycle them because they had been treated with arsenic and chipping the wood would have released more arsenic. So instead of arsenic being released into the air, it could be released into the groundwater if this landfill ever starts to leak!
I recycled all the rebar at EcoCycle in Boulder (63rd and Arapahoe).
If you would like to test the wood in your garden beds or children's playsets or decks for arsenic, go to www.healthybuilding.net to order a swipe test. Click on the "About Us" link in the upper right-hand corner and then go to bottom of the page and click on the link that says "transform the pressure treated wood industry."
2. The areas I recently seeded with buffalograss are finally starting to sprout. It takes that kind of grass two to three weeks to sprout. It will look pretty thin this year but will fill in considerably by next summer. And I don't have to mow it!
I still have to dig up two areas of my yard and turn one into a butterfly garden and the other into a new border for the backyard xeriscape. Doing those two areas is my gardening project for September. I also recently planted some lettuce and carrots.
3. I made my third batch of all-natural face cream the other day. It came out much better than the second batch, which didn't mix well at all (you know what they say about oil and water). I learned to make my own face cream from Christina Blume, who taught a class on the subject at Denver Botanic Gardens. You can check out her website at www.blumesfarm.com or take a class from the gardens (http://www.denverbotanicgardens.com/pageinpage/home.cfm).
posted by Beth at 11:20 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Friday, July 18, 2003
Avoiding Plastic
Impossible, you say, to avoid plastic in this day and age?
You have a point. Since the mid-1990s, food vendors have increasingly packaged their products in plastic, almost all shoe soles are made of plastic, beer companies are researching the potential market for beer in plastic bottles, and more and more restaurants are offering take-home "boxes" made of styrofoam or molded clear plastic, neither of which is recyclable in many places.
But it is possible, by making a determined effort, to reduce the presence of plastic in your life. Most plastic comes in the form of packaging. Take these simple steps, and you will find yourself less inundated.
1. Reuse your grocery bags. Put a bunch of them in your car and use them until they wear out. The old debate over plastic vs. paper is pointless. It's more important to reduce the number of bags you use per year. Or, best of all, you can buy cloth bags; they're much sturdier than either paper or plastic.
Recycle your paper bags and, if possible, the plastic ones. The city of Boulder has recently begun accepting clean, empty (no receipts!) plastic bags at its Center for Hard to Recycle Materials: http://www.ecocycle.org/charm/index.cfm.
2. Buy shoes with leather uppers and leather soles. Almost all nice shoes had leather soles in the 1980s. Now hardly any do. Van Eli is one brand to try.
3. Buy food in glass containers as often as possible. You can still find some types of salad dressing in glass bottles, though I don't think condiments like ketchup come in glass bottles anymore. Occasionally single-serve soft drinks are packaged in glass bottles.
4. Stop using Saran Wrap. If you need to cover some leftovers, use aluminum foil, which is recyclable in many places. Another option is put that half an onion or tomato in a reusable plastic container or in Pyrex microwavable storage containers, available at Target. Go to http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/ref=br_1_3/602-0647142-2219048?asin=B00005OTWX.
5. Take your own containers to restaurants, frequent restaurants that provide reasonably sized servings (NOT Gordon Biersch--they think that one person will want three pieces of meatloaf), or just leave some food on your plate. It never hurts to point out to the staff that styrofoam and molded plastic are not recycled in most localities, but packaging decisions are mostly made at the corporate level.
6. When you place your orders with online or mail-order retailers, ask them to mail your order in reusable packaging (eggshell cartons, packaging peanuts, etc.). Mail Boxes Etc. will take the peanuts and reuse them. Sometimes they take small pieces of styrofoam or even bubble wrap, if you have enough.
I got rid of the monstrous pieces of bubble wrap that protected my new couch by giving them to the Middle Fish gallery in Boulder. They cut them up and used them to wrap pieces of art. It's not the best solution, because the bubble wrap will still eventually be thrown away, but it does reuse it once.
Why did so many retailers turn to plastic in the 1990s? Well, plastic pellet is a byproduct of the petroleum refining process. The price of plastic pellet must have gone down in that period.
posted by Beth at 3:47 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Wednesday, July 09, 2003
End Indoor Air Pollution
I have discovered a "not-toxic" paint that is manufactured in Arvada, Colorado, not too far from where I live in Broomfield!
My mother-in-law gave me a wooden pot holder that holds four plant pots. I decided to paint it a dark red to go with the brick on the outside of our house.
I went to McGuckin Hardware in Boulder, Colorado, a locally famous hardware store, and asked for their low-VOC paint. VOC refers to volatile organic compounds, which are associated with ethylene glycol (a byproduct of petroleum refining), ammonia, acetone, formaldehyde, crystalline silica, and possibly others. These compounds used to be essential ingredients of paint, but no longer.
What McGucken's carries is a brand of no-VOC paint called Earth Tech. According to the label, this paint will not outgas, thus reducing or ending indoor air pollution. For more information on these less-polluting types of paint, go to this site:
http://eartheasy.com/live_nontoxic_paints.htm
posted by Beth at 8:06 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Tuesday, June 24, 2003
Reduce Your Monitor's Energy Use
Energy Star has come up with a way for you to increase the energy efficiency of your computer monitor. Go to http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=home.index and locate the Products heading. Click on "Appliances, Lighting, Heating and Cooling and More." Scroll down to find Office Equipment, and click on Computers. In a sidebar on the right side of the screen, you will see a bullet that says "Activate Monitor Power Management." It takes you to a screen about power management. The address for that page is http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=power_mgt.pr_power_management.
You can also check out the Million Monitor Drive to encourage energy conservation at work.
For more information on the history of Energy Star, go to http://www.energystar.gov/index.cfm?c=about.ab_history.
posted by Beth at 10:17 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Monday, June 16, 2003
Update on My Gourd
I hung my EarthLinks gourd birdhouse in the maple two weeks ago, and one day it mysteriously disappeared. Finally I discovered that a squirrel had chewed through the leather hanger and had tried to eat the gourd! I have hung it again, this time with wire, so we'll see if it's now squirrel-proof.
posted by Beth at 3:25 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Vitamin Cottage: Cheaper than Your Local Grocery Store
Your local grocery store, big as it is and with all the economies of scale one would expect it to have, may not be the cheapest place to buy organic produce.
I have discovered Vitamin Cottage, a Denver-based chain of small grocery stores that sells organic produce and brand names, as well as things like essential oils and a gazillion vitamins and supplements. The store that is closest to my house is in Indian Tree Shopping Center, at 78th and Wadsworth in Arvada. There are stores in Denver and one store in Boulder as well.
I first heard of Vitamin Cottage from teachers at the Botanic Gardens, who recommended it for buying ingredients for making your own skin care products. But one of them claimed that VC charged less than the big chain grocery stores for many items. I decided to check it out.
Last Saturday, I went to Boulder to shop at the Boulder Co-op Market, a newly opened co-op located in Business Express's old building (sadly, it is no longer purple). Then I shopped at Vitamin Cottage.
As I expected, prices at the co-op were fairly high and the selection was small. However, for Bunny-Luv organic baby carrots, even the co-op charged less ($1.79) than King Soopers ($1.99). VC had the best price on baby carrots, at $1.49. VC charged more for green peppers than King Soopers, at $3.19 per pound at VC versus $2.99 at KS, and VC charges 50 cents per pound more for celery, though the King Soopers celery I bought was not organic, so it's not a completely fair comparison.
I buy a type of frozen waffles that contains flax, which helps to regulate my husband's high cholesterol. I believe it's called LifeStream. KS charges $2.59 for a box of 8 waffles; VC charges $2.35.
My favorite discovery, however, was that Religious Experience salsa costs 60 cents less at VC than at KS. Hurray!
Check out VItamin Cottage's website. They have a number of stores in the Denver metro area and one in Walla Walla, Washington: www.vitamincottage.com.
posted by Beth at 3:21 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Monday, June 02, 2003
Artful ReCreations #2 continued
Check out these businesses that were featured at Artful ReCreations Street Fair.
Juvel International
This company is an importer that hires villagers in Thailand to make chopsticks, teabag holders, small bowls, cooking utensils, and so on. The villagers set their own prices and make the products from recycled or scrap wood. www.juvelinternational.com
The GreenFingers Project, Earthlinks
GreenFingers is a micro-economic development project in which homeless and low-income people grow plants and then create and sell products created from the garden's abundance. I bought one of their birdhouses, made from a small yellow gourd that had been grown in a GreenFingers garden. A homeless person had drilled holes in the bottom of the gourd for draining and then drilled an entry hole. www.EarthLinks-Colorado.org
posted by Beth at 9:02 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Monday, May 12, 2003
Artful Recreations #2
On May 2-3, the Eco-Cycle/Broomfield Recycling Center had its second annual recycled art gala and sale, called Artful ReCreations. The gala and auction were held at the Renaissance Suites Hotel this year, which was great fun, and the sale was held at The Village at FlatIron Crossing, both of which are located in Broomfield, Colorado, halfway between Boulder and Denver.
Some of my favorite items at the gala and auction were a purse crocheted from VHS tapes, a cheese board made from an old wine bottle that was heated and then flattened in a kiln (www.patsfunkyart.com), a poster from the first annual Artful Recreations show in 2002 that was framed with old bicycle tires (www.allterrainframes.com), and wall hangings made from old dresses.
I must get to work now, but I'll write more about the sale in later blogs.
posted by Beth at 9:37 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Saturday, May 10, 2003
Spring Storms and Indecision
Last night our cottonwood was trashed by a late spring snowstorm. I had just made an appointment the day before to have Eco-Lawn come out and fertilize the poor thing. Now I may just cut it down.
I've made up my mind not to replace my entire back lawn with buffalograss this year. By the time I added up $750 for the turf and $400 for the delivery and installation (not to mention the cost of getting rid of the old lawn), it seemed far too extravagant. Plus, just yesterday I went to the Denver Botanic Gardens' plant sale and was entranced by the way they mixed grasses and groundcovers in one area of the gardens (see www.botanicgardens.org). This year, I'm going to focus on getting rid of the old wood-enclosed garden beds and installing new (smaller) ones on the other side of the yard. Then I plan to develop innovative ways to reduce my huge, oddly shaped lawn.
Besides getting ideas from visiting Botanic Gardens, I also was inspired by an article in Environmental Defense's May-June 2003 newsletter. For those of you unfamiliar with that organization, it was founded in 1967 to ban DDT in the United States, which it accomplished in 1972. (Go to www.environmentaldefense.org.) I like this organization because it concentrates on practical environmental solutions.
The article in question was subtitled "Our Suburban Scribe (like me!) Cultivates His Own Garden." It was full of ideas for feeding birds naturally (for example, growing sunflowers instead of putting sunflower seeds in feeders) and for developing a butterfly garden. But I think the most important message was the last heading in the article: "Caution: Not everything works." Maybe, just maybe, if Americans got over the idea that their yards had to be perfect, they would stop using so many chemicals on them. That would improve water quality.
For more information on creating backyard wildlife habitat, go to the Natural Resources Conservation Page (www.nrcs.usda.gov/feature/backyard/WildHab.html).
posted by Beth at 3:43 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Sunday, April 13, 2003
Feeding Your Monster Grass
I was out in the yard this weekend pruning and generally doing some spring cleaning. It looks very sad. Some areas have little bunches of grass, and other areas are covered with grass, but the total effect doesn't rise to the level of a turf. And then there are the weeds. I've already dug up some dandelions, but they're like the Terminator. They'll be back. Maybe if I made salad out of them I wouldn't mind weeding so much.
In past years, I've found that using corn gluten on my lawn in the early spring is a good way to fend off the dandelions. Corn gluten, according to something I read somewhere once upon a time, is a byproduct of the wet milling process (no, I don't know exactly what that is). Its ability to inhibit the growth or sprouting of weeds was discovered by accident. If you apply it to your lawn in, say, March, and apply it every 8 weeks thereafter until the fall, it will keep the dandelions in check. Corn gluten works by preventing the dandelions from sprouting, so it won't do much to the ones that have already come up. However, I have found that if I dig up the dandelions and then apply corn gluten, it seems to inhibit the old weeds from coming back.
Corn gluten is expensive. The last time I bought some, at Echter's Greenhouse in Arvada, Colorado, I paid $28 for 40 pounds, which just about covered my yard.
The advantages of corn gluten are its lack of toxicity and its properties as a mild fertilizer.
If you really want your lawn to look thick, you'll have to do more than apply corn gluten. One option in the Denver North Metro area is Eco-Lawn, a company in Boulder. Their slogan is "Growing Healthy Lawns, Safely." They know that a truly healthy lawn is less hospitable to weeds, so they do everything they can to build up microorganisms in the soil that promote steady root growth. Lawns with deeper roots won't be as quick to turn brown in the heat. Last summer, we got an estimate from Eco-Lawn for fertilization, aeration, and application of a water retention solvent in the form of pellets that get into the soil and retains water. Their estimate for our lawn was $242 for treatment of 2,265 square feet. Of course, you can buy organic fertilizers and a spreader and rent your own aerator, but I think it would be worth it to get the water retention solvent. That cost less than $50.
We didn't use Eco-Lawn last year because we decided to put in a new lawn this year, so I can't tell you how well it worked. You can call them at (303) 494-6500.
posted by Beth at 4:59 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
It's time to write about grass again.
I think I've finally worked up the financial courage to replace my backyard lawn with buffalograss sod. I estimate that our backyard is 1,500 square feet, so the new sod will probably cost about $750.
But first, how do I get rid of the old lawn?
1. I could spray it with Roundup. Besides being toxic, however, spraying all that square footage would make my hand hurt. And I would probably need to do several applications.
2. I could have the soil rototilled. But would my sprinkler system survive it?
3. I could have the sod stripped off. That would provide a fairly flat surface for the buffalograss sod. But would the bluegrass start growing back?
I can't just overseed with buffalograss. It doesn't compete well with bluegrass and fescue.
When I figure it out, I'll let you know.
posted by Beth at 4:37 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Friday, April 04, 2003
Nice Try
Sometimes I read Wired because it's around the house. It always has an article that's interesting, even if the tone is a little breathless. In the April 2003 issue, the article that caught my eye was "How Hydrogen Power Can Save America: A 5-Point Plan to End the Oil Era" (http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/11.04/hydrogen.html).
Now I do believe we are at the beginning of the end of the oil era. But it will take the better part of the twenty-first century to completely shuck our dependence on it.
This article proposes that President Bush spend $100 billion to develop a hydrogen infrastructure and encourage manufacture of hydrogen-powered vehicles in the next ten years. It takes John Kennedy's 1960s Apollo program as its model. So far, so good.
It's a great idea, except for three problems. In Step 1, "Solve the Hydrogen Fuel Tank Problem," the authors conclude that "the most promising approach is to fill the tank with a solid material that soaks up hydrogen like a sponge at fill-up and releases it during drive time. Currently, the options include lithium hydride, sodium borohydride, and an emerging class of ultraporous nanotech materials." What the authors don't tell us is where we are supposed to get large quantities of these materials. Will we need labs to make them? Will we need to mine them? Are they toxic to produce?
Second, the authors dismiss wind and solar as viable ways to solve our energy problems. Some people have claimed that there's enough wind in the Dakotas to power the entire U.S. energy grid, but there's no mention of such promise from this article (I'd go look for a source, but it's early in the morning, and I'm too lazy). Here is what they have to say about the potential of currently viable alternative energy sources: "Far preferable would be to use carbon-free resources like solar, wind, and hydropower to produce electricity for electrolysis, which splits water into hydrogen and oxygen. Hydrogen would make renewable energy practical, acting as a storage medium for the modest amounts of energy such resources produce." So that's the potential of solar and wind power for the authors of this article. They would reduce technology that has been proven but is severely underutilized to the role of servant to an idea.
The third problem I have with this article is the authors' attitude toward nuclear energy, which they call a "clean, efficient, and much neglected energy source." Since when has nuclear been efficient or clean? How can an industry that produces waste that is toxic for thousands of years ever be called clean? It's nonsense!
OK, I feel better now. Part of the reason this article annoyed me is that I'm one of the people investing in wind power through WindSource, XCEL Energy's wind program. If you're an XCEL customer in Colorado, New Mexico, or Minnesota, go buy at least one 100-kilowatt hour block of wind power. It will cost you a measly $2.50 (go to http://www.xcelenergy.com/XLWEB/CDA/0,2914,1-1-1_3729_3677_3682-3148-0_0_0-0,00.html).
posted by Beth at 6:30 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Saturday, March 15, 2003
Grass, Man
It's warm outside, very warm. All this summery weather makes me think of grass.
Now, don't sick John Ashcroft on me quite yet. I'm talking about lawn grass. In the fourth summer of drought here in Colorado, grass is on everyone's minds. Typically, a household expends 50 percent of its water on landscaping (toilets, the next largest category, account for 13 percent of household water use). Governments along the Front Range are eyeing their half-empty reservoirs and encouraging homeowners to reduce the amount of water they sprinkle on their lawns.
My favorite way to reduce water use is to replace regular turf with buffalograss. It's a tough, low-growing grass (about 8 inches tall) that makes a fine lawn and has the advantages of needing little mowing (if you don't mind longer grass) and little water (as little as an inch every two weeks in the hottest parts of the summer). It needs at least 6 hours a day of sun.
There are two ways to get a buffalograss lawn: sod or seed (after you've removed the old lawn, of course). Sod is more expensive but produces instant gratification; seed is much cheaper and easier but requires extended weeding. The difference between buffalograss seed and sod is this: the seed will produce both female plants (which spread by runners) and male plants (which produce 6-inch-high seed heads); the sod contains only female plants. I prefer the look of the male plants, but the female ones help to produce a thick sod.
Along the Front Range, sod can be obtained from Graff's Turf Farm in Fort Morgan (970-867-TURF). They charge about 50 cents per square foot of sod and $75 to deliver small quantities (under 500 square feet, if I remember correctly). If you don't want to pay the delivery fee, you must drive to Fort Morgan and have the sod loaded into your truck, then drive home and unload it yourself. Buffalograss sod comes in rectangles, not in rolls, so it's a little more difficult to install, but you can carry several rectangles at once. The sod will need to be watered every day for at least two weeks and then two or three times a week for the rest of the season. You will not realize water savings on buffalograss until the summer after you install it.
Buffalograss seed is available at a number of places: Garden Country in Westminster sells it for $12 a pound, the cheapest price I've seen anywhere. It is a strange green color, I believe because of a treatment that makes it sprout more readily. But be warned: not all of it will sprout the first year. Buffalograss seeds can lie dormant for several years.
Buy 2 to 3 pounds of seed for every 1,000 square feet. You can buy extra to try to achieve a thicker turf the first year, but it really takes two years to fill in. Score the ground, distribute the seed, and cover it with a thin layer of compost. Then water it every day for three weeks. It takes a long time to sprout and will look thin the first year, but the second year, the areas that were planted the year before will be much more robust.
Buffalograss is green from May through September. The rest of the year, it is a light beige color that is much more attractive than the dull brown of dormant bluegrass lawns. If you're unsure, try buffalograss in a dry, very sunny spot in your yard and see how you like the results!
posted by Beth at 6:45 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Sunday, March 09, 2003
Wow, it's been a while. More than a month, in fact, but I finally got my ass in gear and decided to blog again. As you might expect, I now have a backlog of subjects.
Recently my husband Todd Bradley (you can check out his site at www.toddbradley.com) and I had LASIK. Now we are faced with the problem of disposing of our old eyeglasses.
As you may know, some optical companies do take old eyeglasses, measure the prescription on them, and then match them with people in other countries have a similar prescription. The prescription will not be exact in most cases, of course, but at least some people who can't afford to buy eyeglasses will attain better eyesight. I took most of our old eyeglasses to Lenscrafters at the Flatiron Crossing Mall in Broomfield, Colorado. They had a special box built into their wall into which I put our seven pairs of old glasses, and the woman behind the desk said their next stop for delivery of eyeglasses would be Mexico. They didn't want the cases, however, so I'm still debating what to do with them. I saved a few for sunglasses, and I'll probably take the rest to the Salvation Army.
There is another option that I know of for disposing of eyeglasses: you can donate them to a local Lion's Club. My father, Bill Partin, who lives and practices law in Kansas City, has been a member of the local Lion's Club for years. He said their club works mainly with Central and South American countries and mentioned a sister club in Guatemala.
So here's yet another aspect of recycling. It's not just dumping things in a dirty old bin full of broken glasses and blowing paper. It's actually a way of directly improving the lives of the poor.
posted by Beth at 10:12 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Thursday, February 06, 2003
Here is what Redefining Progress had to say about the discrepancy in the scores between the two Eco-Footprint quizzes:
Dear Beth,
We had to simplify the Footprint quiz for the Sierra magazine because they wanted a shorter, less complicated version. The discrepancy lies in the housing section. In the online version, we use a rather complicated model that factors in a number of things, including weather city. In the Sierra quiz we weren't able to incorporate that, and therein lies the difference. So take the online version as the more reliable--in your case, it's factoring in a climate that is probably colder or hotter than what we assumed in the Sierra version, where you would require more energy to heat/cool your home.
Best,
Diana Deumling
I'm not sure I agree with their calculations in this case. For instance, I would think that fewer people in the Denver area use air conditioners than in Kansas City or Washington, D.C. (two other cities in which I've lived) because the humidity is lower and thus the temperature feels cooler. And the winters in Denver have always seemed "warmer" to me because the area is drier.
Another aspect of this increase that bothers me is the fact that the increase in my Shelter acreage, which is due to the climate of where I live, affects my Goods and Services total. Why should I need to have more "stuff" just because it's cooler or warmer where I live? That really doesn't make sense.
posted by Beth at 8:20 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Monday, February 03, 2003
Well, it's been a while since I've blogged, but finally I'm back. And I'm disgusted--with somebody, possibly myself.
A while ago, I took the Ecological Footprint quiz in Sierra Club magazine (I'm not a member, but my husband is, so sometimes I read the mag.). According to the article, "The Ecological Footprint Quiz, designed by the Oakland-based group Redefining Progress, shows individuals how large a share of the earth's resources they absorb." The quiz has four categories: Food, Shelter, Mobility, and Goods/Services (the larger your shelter, the more goods and services you will require).
After scribbling all over the magazine article and coming up with results ranging from 14 to about 20, I decided to go to the website for Redefining Progress, http://www.rprogress.org/programs/sustainability/ef/, and take their online quiz, which would save me the trouble of doing the calculations myself.
I was shocked! (shocked!) to see that my footprint is 27 acres. Me, Miss Recycling Guru, using 3 more acres more than the Average American (a label to which I've never aspired, by the way. I guess I've succeeded--I'm above average in consumption). The planet has 4 acres per person (based on 5.7 billion acres of productive ocean and 21 billion acres of productive land for more than 6 billion people).
I did send them an email asking why my Shelter footprint was so much larger in the online quiz than in the Sierra Club quiz. I'll keep you posted.
posted by Beth at 7:40 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Sunday, January 19, 2003
In my last blog, I said I'd written to Annie Chun's about using recycled paperboard packaging. Here's the response I received.
Dear Beth,
Thank you very much for your note, and for expressing your concern regarding our packaging.
Annie Chun's is a relatively small producer of Asian noodles and sauces, but we are making efforts to minimize our impact on the environment. Our cardboard packaging is actually made from recycled paperboard containing 35 - 70% post consumer waste. Our packaging supplier strives to use 70% post consumer waste paperboard for our boxes but has advised us that we may sometimes receive 35% post consumer waste board when 70% is not available.
Based on this, we are beginning to label our boxes with the following statement:
"Printed on recycled paperboard. Made from 35% post consumer waste."
I hope that this information is helpful to you and that you may enjoy our products again in the future. Thank you again for writing to us and for sharing your thoughts.
With best wishes,
Anja Hakoshima
Annie Chun's Inc.
Consumer Service Support
posted by Beth at 6:22 PM
bapartin@yahoo.com
Saturday, January 11, 2003
Recycled paper where you never thought it could be
All of us have heard of recycling office paper, right? And we know about recycling newspapers--my parents were taking their old newspaper to church recycling drives in the 1970s. But have you ever wondered what happens to that recycled paper?
What many of us don't realize is that to truly make recycling work, we need to buy recycled products--in this case, paper. Where can we do that?
Take newspaper. Most of the newspaper recycled ends up in another newspaper or a telephone book. However, it can also be made into cellulose insulation that can be blown into the walls of your home or cladwood siding and trim. A Home Depot advertising supplement from 2001 says that they sell 179,251 sheets of cladwood a year, thus saving 4,169 trees. Of course, if we really wanted to save trees, we would recycle all our newspapers. Just recycling all our Sunday papers would save half a million trees every week, or 26 million per year. (For more recycling factoids like the previous one, go to www.ecocycle.org and click on Tidbits and Facts. Eco-Cycle is the largest nonprofit recycler in the United States.)
And, of course, we can buy office paper made from recycled paper in just about any office supply store. I think I've also seen it at Target. Making paper from something besides trees is nothing new. Until the twentieth century, paper was made from things like rags and hemp (a plant related to pot that cannot legally be grown in the United States). Then paper makers decided that making wood from trees was better, and from what I've heard, they even helped to criminalize drugs so that they would have less competition from hemp paper. Paper can also be made from the banana plant. To find some recycled paper for yourself, go to Mama's Earth at www.mamasearth.com. If you're a business in Colorado, try Eco-Cycle's Buy Recycled Network at the URL already given above. Or you can go online and search for "buy recycled paper."
To my mind, these are the obvious things to do. What's most interesting to me is the the less obvious thing. So the other day I went to my local King Sooper's (owned by Kroger, I believe) and checked a few items on the shelves. Generally when I do things like this, I get frustrated because there's no reason that every Kleenex box and every pasta box can't be made from recycled paper (this kind of paper is called light cardboard or paperboard in the recycling industry). But few are.
A box of Annie Chun's noodles, for example, said, "Please recycle." But nothing indicated that that packaging was made from recycled materials. I sent the company an email asking why they want me to recycle if they're not willing to buy recycled products. I'll let you know what they say.
However, Annie's Homegrown packaging is 100% recycled and is made from 35% postconsumer paper. So is De Boles. No doubt, if I went through the store aisle by aisle, I could find a few more examples. (One bright spot was the box of Sun-Maid California Golden Raisins, which had 50% postconsumer content.) It makes me sad to see how few there are, because as a volunteer for Eco-Cycle, I know that paperboard recycling is unprofitable for recyclers. If big companies would make their packaging from recycled paperboard, then maybe organizations like Eco-Cycle could make some money off collecting it. Then they could expand their other programs. See? We're all connected to Annie Chun.
I'll give you a few more examples of ways to buy recycled paper, and then I'll leave you alone for the rest of your weekend. My local King Sooper's offers two brands of recycled Kleenex, toilet paper, and paper towels, Green Forest and Seventh Generation. (Seventh Generation also makes laundry detergent.) Green Forest is cheaper, but its products generally have about 10% postconsumer recycled content, whereas Seventh Generation's have 80% postconsumer content. And yes, you will pay more for more postconsumer content. Another good thing about Seventh Generation is that their white paper products have not been bleached with chlorine.
I recommend using the toilet paper and the paper towels from either company. The Kleenex is not the softest in the world, but if you don't have a cold, it's OK. The toilet paper is soft enough; it won't give you burning asshole disease (BAD). And Green Forest makes paper napkins. If you can't manage to use cloth napkins, then buy Green Forest recycled paper napkins!
One last note: "postconsumer" content toilet paper is not made from used toilet paper. Somebody asked me that once. Used toilet paper goes down the sewer pipe with all the other sewage sludge. It is not made into recycled paper.
posted by Beth at 10:42 AM
bapartin@yahoo.com
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