i feel like i’ve written about my contribution to being green already, but after scouring my archives, i suppose i haven’t. perhaps i’ve confused myself with 1) the billions of words already written on the subject or 2) my own self-proclaimed fascination with an apocalyptic demise and the fate of mankind that may or may not actually relate to environmental awareness.
thanks to wire and twine, i found this pretty comprehensive list of things one can do. and i’m happy to announce that me and the boy are pretty above average on most everything.
- biking. we do it. nearly every. damn. day. and if we don’t, we ride public transport or carpool with those who have cars.
- recycle. though, admittedly, we use our neighbors’ blue bins. our landlady is a bit wacky, so i don’t have the balls enough to ask her to look into a recycle program from our current waste management system.
- plastic bags. this was a hard one since we have a dog, but we finally gave them up. and no, this doesn’t mean we stopped picking up poop—biodegradable bags are now purchased for that dirty job. we do get the occasional plastic bag when we’re on outings sans bike (thus sans bike bag), or we forget to grab a canvas bag on the way out. but perhaps stores should stop offering them as an alternative altogether, so that it’s not such an easy fall-back.
- light bulbs. our main lights have been switched out to CFLs, though now i hear there is reason to be concerned over too much mercury. regardless, i subscribe to the ideology that if something affects my pocketbook for the worse, i make amends to change the offender. meaning: i just turn lights off when they’re not necessary. end of story.
- vegetarian. well, mostly.
- online anything and everything. trying to put an end to all paper catalogs. all but one of my financial institutions allows for paperless statements. all bills are paid online. phone books? pfft. who needs ‘em when the internet is right there at your fingertips.
- and personally, bottled water is simply an annoyance and reeks of pretension, imo.
things to work on: our usage of water and my occasional trip to a coffeeshop.
- short showers are difficult for me. and baths, well, the boy and i both take them probably more often than we should.
- rinsing dishes before going into the dishwasher. listen, we’re in an apartment with low-end, non-energy efficient appliances. and that alleged “dishwasher” needs a little help before the cycle begins.
- but, in effort to make up for it, we don’t run water while we brush our teeth, nor do we use the washer and dryer frequently. sounds gross on the laundry issue, but really, aside from underwear, do your clothes need that much laundering? how stinky of a person are you? besides, washers and dryers (and the mainstream detergents) are not particularly good for the health and longevity of your clothing anyway.
- and really, i will stop by CVS or walgreens soon and pick up an insulated coffee mug. i don’t drink coffee, but need an infrequent warm beverage. and every single time i do, a pang of guilt hits like a freight truck when i walk out with my paper cup. bad me!
so overall, not too bad of a round-up. but at least i know where we need help. and, i know that many of my everyday choices are already for the better anyway.
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22 April 2008
anyone who knows me is well aware of the fact that i detest winter. hell, i ran away to the caribbean for a few months to avoid the wasteland that snow and frigid temperatures cause. and the thing is, i don’t even remember really liking this season much when i was younger either. a snow day from school simply meant i could actually watch the “price is right.”
so this winter, i’ve decided to take a different approach aside from getting up and moving for 3-4 months every year (and that has been discussed in length, mind you). and thus far, things are noticeably better. granted, the coldness has only taken hold for about a month, so we’ll see how i feel come mid-february.
the difference? wool. plain and simple. and people, it’s not itchy. at least, not the sportwool i buy for biking purposes. i’ve got a couple lighter weight, long sleeve base layers, which are perfect as standalones during cooler fall weather. put that together with another mid-to-heavyweight layer, and i’m toasty. in fact, i’ve come to discover that if you wear wool day in and day out, 1) you don’t smell (seriously. it won’t happen.), and 2) you get downright balmy. and balmy + damn cold = kinda nice.
so, chicago, i love you for your cuisine and quaint shops and the lack of need for a car, but i will never love you in the wintertime. never, ever. even with your cute twinkle lights downtown and seemingly serene icecaps on the lake. but in order for this relationship to work, i need to wear so much wool indoors that when i go outside in negative wind chills, it actually feels refreshing to have wind burn and frozen snot-cicles.
14 December 2007
i know, i know. i think i’ve dedicated at least three blog posts to purging and sorting and organizing. but i realized today that whenever i come to some big crossroads in my life, i feel the need to cleanse. hence the unhealthy relationship with my shredder and fascination with storage bins as of late.
and before i go any further, the shredding is complete, save for the inevitable daily junk mail. so this should just about round out the topic. for a little while at least.
and for today’s “to shred” pile:
- a dispute with first usa over some airline tickets purchased in march of 2003, in which air jamaica underestimated the value of the dollar. by 200%. so not cool.
- the appraisal paperwork from carmax for my mitsubishi eclipse. in october of 2002. so yay to me being carless for 5 years!
- a staggering $32,000 price tag on my student loan estimate after full payment. um, yeah, in 2016. lucky for me i can suture that bleeding gash long before then.
so after all these shredding sessions, what have i learned? that more people and institutions and agencies need to embrace the digital age. i hate paper. i hate killing trees. and honestly, i hate shredding. i hate slips of paper in my desk, on my desk, on the bookshelf, in my mailbox, on the kitchen counter. why must utility bills have all those damn inserts? and why can’t i turn the utility paper statements off like i can for my bank and credit cards? and even though i opted out of junk mail, how does the red cross, american cancer society, and the humane society get away with still sending me stuff?
and let’s talk about the amount of paperwork for insurance. any kind of insurance, you name it. life, renters, homeowners, health, liability, blah friggin’ blah. they all have booklets and documents with fine print and an exaggerated amount of footnotes, thus equating to innumerable pieces of paper. in my grand electronic utopia, i want to have an agent come to me with a tablet and a stylus. have me sign the documentation on-screen and with a touch of a pulldown menu, email me a PDF of the document for my records. or shouldn’t there be a universal way to send a digital signature — doesn’t the IRS do something similar to this for online filing?
and if i want a hardcopy, i’ll print it for myself from my electronic version, which has surely been backed up on my hard drive and burned to DVD. voila! my paperless ideal! i’d gladly take a 100kb+ PDF file over a 1/4” thick perfect-bound manuscript of legal fluff.
i know we can’t be paperless for everything, but i’d like to think with the strides being taken for a greener planet, that some technologies will have to be implemented to eradicate the pointless waste of paper in our everyday lives.
11 November 2007
