Things that need reusing

In addition to recovering old usable tools from thrift stores (and learning to use them), here's my current re-using list. (I post these hoping that someone in need of a good, recycling-based business idea will run across them!)

• Clothing fabric. Americans throw away an average of 68 lbs of clothing a year. We clothe entire nations in our cast-offs, while buying new ourselves. I was at an event where there were these wonderful, classic patterned quilts. The friend I was with asked about them, they're made in a factory from new materials. There's just something wrong about making a classic quilt from new materials instead of re-using the ones you have...
• Newsprint - Okay, yes. It can be composted ground up into pulp. But what about another use before that? What about turning them into take out containers? (Maybe with a food-based wax coating...)
• Greeting cards. I am experimenting with making wire-bound journals from these, preferably with recycled wire.
• I need a plastic container swap. My local recycling company doesn't take #5 plastic and I have a small box of lidless containers and container-less lids. Seems like someone could collect 'em, match em up, run 'em through a sanitizing dishwasher and then sell them... as used of course.
• This is more of a reducing thing than a reusing thing, but supporting local dairies that still deliver milk in re-usable glass containers. The market for plastic recycled milk jugs is incredibly, depressingly small.
• On a similar tangent, EcoDragon, which used to make woven hemp shoes without glue, seems to have disappeared. If the plans were available somewhere, it seems like there are fibers that could be recycled into woven shoes.
• CDs and cases. No ideas here, but they're ubiquitous and durable. Seems like something could be done with them... Hey... how about a purse lined with a t-shirt to keep things from falling out? They can be broken, what about cutting or drilling them?
  

Feel free to continue the brainstorm in comments. (Note: Brainstorming is tossing out ideas sparked by previous thoughts, not the evaluation of ideas. You can do that when you're writing your business plan. ;-) )

WooHoo!

This morning I had an appointment and I'd planned all week to drive in to work to make the time fit. But when I got up this morning, I was actually brainstorming about how to walk/ride my bike/take the bus and make the time work. I ended up driving anyway, but it felt really weird. If it is the consuming that is feeling weird and the conserving that is comforting and normal, I must be making change.

One anxiety I've had is what the folks I work with would think of me. But two weeks ago, in sending an invitation to the office to participate in Bike to Work day, one of my co-workers said that she hasn't driven to work since March. And last week, two of the managers in my suite biked in on at least one day. This week I've had good exchanges with the coworker who's on Weight Watchers and trying to walk more, an engineer who bikes in regularly, and the afore-mentioned message-sender. So I'm experiencing some very real belonging, if not actual support. This is nice. In my home life, I've talked with four close friends and in spite of sharing a concern about the state of the world and shopping at natural food stores and taking other conservation measures, none of them are ready to re-think the assumptions they make about driving.

I get frustrated, but I think "ready" is the operative word. Four months ago I was happy that I'd cut my commute in half by moving. One month ago, I started to realize that I'd bought the car I'm driving to try to cover 100% of my driving, instead of shopping for the far more practical and economical 90% of my driving. And then it wasn't until Low Impact Week that I was ready to see my life schedule as flexible enough to encompass an hour of walking and 40 minutes of reading every day (that's the bus commute).

And that adds up to a kind of coming-out process. Being willing to be identified as others as something different from an assumed "normal." For most office jobs in the US it is "normal" to drive an SUV a half hour to work each day, eat processed food, work out in a gym, and then go shopping for more stuff to put in the 2000 sq ft home you share with one other person. But "normal" isn't healthy, or responsible, or even practical. It wasn't normal for our parents, it's just what it seems like every one else is doing. Or rather... what the people we notice are doing. And who are the people we notice? The ones we choose to look for. Bit of a catch-22 there. Look for people who are doing what you want to do and you'll find 'em, whether that behavior is actually healthy and happiness-making or not.

Low Impact Week

In the manner of time in my life, Low Impact Week snuck up on me. I guess that's appropriate in a way, it keeps me from making this week easier by doing extra work last week to prepare for it.

I have been meaning to ride the bus to work from my local park-n-ride, I have the coupons and everything. And for the last week my cat has been waking me up about 5. So this morning I grabbed the opportunity and headed out of the house with a full lunch bag and no delays to check the schedule. My bus left about 5 minutes after I got to the plaza, I had a lovely 20 minute ride through farms and great vistas (and I got to enjoy them since I wasn't driving), and then a 30 min. walk. All kinds of things I've been wanting more of in my life.

I even got to chat with a friend who was on her way to work.

I went to a commuter college for my bachelors and spent those years riding the bus and walking a lot. There's a part of me that knows *most* of the time, the weather's going to be fine. The walking part isn't too far. If I need more food than I have, I can find it. But in spite of all kinds of really positive, self-sufficient experiences with bus-aided mobility, when I get away from it for a while, shadows creep in. I think, "I can't take the bus today... it might rain/snow/be too hot." And yet I've taken the bus in those conditions, and learned that the really uncomfortable times are out at the margins.

There is a pocket of my poverty consciousness that gets triggered when I ride the bus. I did it because I was broke so much of the time, and now when I get on, I often feel broke in spite of the richness in my life.

I also feel a kind of defensiveness. I feel like people I know would only take the bus if they didn't have gas money, a friend to ride with, or if their cars were in the shop. So the joy in chatting with my friend today was that none of those questions came up. It seemed completely normal that I was walking to work. I would like more of those experiences.

And then there's the quote that was in my inbox when I fired up my computer:

Business opportunities are like buses, there's always another one coming.

-- Richard Branson (Virgin Founder)

I love that Richard Branson, who in many ways represents a "cool" I find appealing, knows about buses, and knows about them with a familiarity that gives him a point of grounding when it comes to the business game. It certainly challenges my poverty trigger.

The American Public Transportation Association (APTA) is sponsoring their 2nd Annual Dump the Pump day on June 21. It's an invitation to pick a day to go without using gas (or diesel); but also a day to try public transportation. Look for events near you.

Keeping cool in summer

No Impact Man was asking for advice about washing laundry and keeping his NYC apartment cool without using power. I commented that hanging the laundry to dry inside the apartment might act as a swamp cooler. I don't know if that will work in NYC... you need to get both a breeze and a humidity that's less than 100. But I unwittingly performed this experiment today. One of my roommates is fond of loose embroidered shirts which she washes and then hang dries. She hung four of them in the doorway to my office today and as long as the shirts were damp to the touch, my office was noticeably cooler.

I may need to start hang-drying my laundry...

And the Oscar goes to...

I was so excited for Al Gore on Oscar night.

The next morning I started reflecting on An Inconvenient Truth again. I like to think it was a reminder of many things I already know and value... and yet... and yet I had exactly zero compact fluorescent bulbs replacing incandescents in my new house. I had to wonder if I really believed Mr. Gore... or if the message was still taking up residence in my, "gee, wouldn't it be nice if the world was different" category.

I don't know all that much about CFLs. In my first condo, I replaced a few lights with the elongated tube kind. They burned blue and they didn't fit in the same spaces my incandescents did. When I brought those lamps to the house I lived in with my ex, she nixed them. But the challenge Mr. Gore gave in his speech -- take the three bulbs you use most and replace them with CFLs -- plus the recent decision by Australia to outlaw incandescents... well, I decided it was past time to give it a try.

I bought $100 worth of bulbs at the local hardware store. This included a new fixture for the front porch, a couple of "daylight" bulbs, and a whole bunch of soft white spirals in different wattages.

The fluorescent fixture claimed it would save 75% over conventional fixtures, and at our house the front porch light can be on for 4 or more hours. It also had the bonus of being a dusk to dawn lamp -- turning on when the sun went down. Since I am usually the first one home and come home after dark, and in the dark, I started there. It turns out that 25% of the promised savings was because the light cycled on and off every 20 seconds, which the roommates vetoed. So I found another florescent fixture and changed it out again. The steady florescent light was acceptable.

I put the daylight bulbs outside the coat closet. The blue cast in the hall was another no-go for the roomies.

In the kitchen and the full bath, I mixed one incandescent and one soft white fluorescent in each fixture. These were completely inconspicuous to the roommates. Additionally I changed out 3 of the 5 bulbs in the dimmable dining room lamp. These also passed.

My conclusions from this exercise are:

• We are a soft white household.
• My roommates are fine with energy economy as long as it doesn't require major discomfort on their part.

I know the 5 bulbs we use most are among the 15 I changed, so by some measures I've done "enough". But given that Australia and the EU are banning incandescents, I'd like to go farther eventually. I haven't found a bulb that will replace the spot flood we have in the half bath... it's fully enclosed and the lights I've tried are too flat. Maybe that's a place for an LED replacement. I need to try 3-ways in three fixtures, and I need to replace a couple of torchieres.

I'm expecting to do my buying for these experiments from here. If you shop there, any bulb that doesn't say "daylight" is a soft white bulb... at least according to the customer service rep who e-mailed me.

Cool Tool!

Well, I went out to my utility company's website to grab the link for their fluorescent bulb supplier and I found the EnergyGuide.com tool instead. This tool allows you to set up an account, enter in info from your bills and your house and get a report on how you're doing compared to average.
I feel like I'm doing pretty well. Of course, I really wish that my current use *was* average and then we'd be in a bit less trouble. But anyway.
I have some complaints about their suggestions and the tools they've built to make suggestions. For example, if you go to the fridge info, they don't have that sun king from the energy star list as an option. For heat, they don't let you compare ways of heating your house (steam vs forced air, for example). And there aren't any options for seeing what solar might do.
But it's brightly colored, interactive, reasonably responsive and so it's one of those "fun" tools for me. I still wish there was a tool where they'd let you print karma certificates though...

Blow or Show?

I got the idea, looking at the 3+ boxes of facial tissue I went through last week, that perhaps it is time to experiment with handkerchiefs. Without going into all the details of all my nose-blowing habits (can you say "allergic rhinitis"? I knew you could!), I do seem to be the kind of person who could benefit from using a handkerchief during the day and tossing it into the dirty laundry at night and selecting a new one in the morning with my underwear.


So I went handkerchief shopping. I have memories of running across them in the past... they'd be hanging out by the ties in the men's section of the department store. But the department store I visited didn't carry them. I tried using a bandanna from a craft store, but it was too rough and too big to stuff in my pocket. A friend of mine suggested looking at a Men's Warehouse. So last night I was walking from the restaurant where I had dinner to the office supply store to get some garden planning materials and I looked up and realized I was walking by a Men's Warehouse. I walked in, scouted out the tie section, didn't see anything and wondered whether handkerchiefs were so far gone from our psyche that they aren't stocked even here... when a guy behind the registers asked if he could help me find anything. I said, "handkerchiefs" and he said, "Show or Blow?" Which was a really cool way of saying they are still pretty common, but there are two kinds.

So I got myself a baker's dozen for a buck apiece, and we'll see how this goes. At least I know no old-growth forests are being cut down so I can wipe my nose this week.

~~~~~~~~~

I have been mulling over that couplet from "The Night Before Christmas":

Ma in her kerchief, and I in my cap,
had just settled down for a long winter's nap

and that got me to wondering what a "kerchief" was to have this common use... here's the Wikipedia link for those of you whose minds wander like mine. ;-)