Garbage-free coffee

We’ve talked coffee on this blog before (fair trade & roast your own) but I’m not sure if I mentioned waste-free coffee. I use a spring with coffee sock for my freshly roasted and ground coffee each morning, and hubby prefers espresso. Either way, it’s delicious and garbage-free.

By now I’m sure you’re aware amount of waste going into each cup of coffee made with single serving coffee pod machines is madness and maddening, especially when we’ve gone thousands of years preparing coffee without plastic. If you’re not sure why these pods are such a problem, you can read about it in The Atlantic, Inhabitat, USA Today, and The Story of Stuff, among a myriad of other places, I’m sure. Bottom line, they are difficult to recycle, and most don’t make it past the garbage can, and the compostable ones mostly end in the trash. There are reusable pods now for those of you that have a pod machine, but I wonder how much traction they have in the market. We are a consumerist society of convenience, after all.

Recently, I went on a trip with my 3 brothers and mother and both Mom & I brought our coffee socks and one of my brothers brought a French press, as we all saw that the airbnb only had a nespresso machine. Other things we brought were refillable water bottles, travel mugs, reusable shopping bags, and my brother even brought some mesh produce bags 👏. It’s something that my own family did on our vacation this summer as well. I like that we’ve been doing it so long now that we don’t leave home without them. Good habits can be learned, replacing the bad ones we easily fall into. It did take a while, though, to always remember these things. The shopping bags (and produce and bulk barn bags) live on the doorknob so I remember them on the way out.

Lastly, (organic, fair trade) green coffee beans from Merchants of Green Coffee are packaged post-consumer paper bags with a vegetable based liner and are biodegradable. I usually just rip them up and put them in my composter, and save the heavy duty twist tie at the top of the bag for reuse.

 

 

 

A few links to check out…

Okay, it’s been an age since I posted, and I have a few posts in mind, but I am going to start with this link to The eight-room, 420-square-foot studio apartment (linked vimeo video on buzzbuzzhome). It’s got some pretty cool design features for living small and well.

Another link I wanted to share was this one on food fraud and how you really can’t trust food labels. From a report from the U.S. Pharmacopeial Convention: Diarrhea Fish being passed off as tuna, diluted olive oil… eeewww.

And one last link before I head off to bed, for the Canadians out there. Please consider sending a letter  (via davidsuzuki.org) to the government about how you don’t want our tax dollars to be funding the oil sands and fossil fuel development, and although they’ve gutted environmental programs, you’d like some of our dollars to go to species at risk and protecting our oceans.

Full Review!

Just updating the full review since the last time I did it was in 2009.

Why review? To let you know how it’s going, what’s easy, what’s not as easy, etc.

I figure a table with a 1(hard)/2(medium)/3(easy) star (*) system (x means failure and there is one n/a not applicable) with a comment might be easiest to peruse, but sorry about the scrolling…

#	Description	***	Comment
1	Mow lawn every week	*	I am always a slacker by the end of summer, but I just let it grow –  I don’t bother with the neighbour’s electric anymore.
2	Fill kettle a cup at a time	***	I have a counting strategy at the tap (3 is 1 cup, 6 is 2 cups, etc) but I’m still (year later) working on hubby
3	Bring home recycling & green bin	***	We mostly just carry reusable stuff so it’s a non-issue.
4	Read news online (cancelled paper subscription)	***	Works fine. Very rarely I crave a paper in hand. Plus I get news from more diverse sources now.
5	Buy produce at Farmer’s Market in season	***	I actually only get my honey at the farmer’s market now that we use a CSA. (It comes in glass and is local and very tasty!)
6	Packaging free take-out	***	Tiffin boxes have worked out very well. Restaurants love them and folks ask where to get them.
7	Fair trade chocolate	***	It’s worth it (for my conscience) & you can buy it in more & more places (& I found it bulk!)
8	Unplug chargers/plugs not in use	***	Habit took a few weeks to get into but I’m still doing well.
9	Walk to the bulk store instead of drive	*	Not since the bike accident…
10	No more bottled water	***	Good.
11	Buy second hand	***	This is easy, cheap, and all-around great!
12	No junk mail	**	I don’t know if greendimes made any difference whatsoever but a sign on your mailbox certainly does.
13	Fair trade coffee	***	We went a step further & roast our own green beans & I’ve never enjoyed my 1 cup/day more
14	Toilet train the oldest	***	Working on the youngest now…
15	Saving our plastic bags for when they are added to the recyclables	x	The city reneged on this idea so I have slowly been adding them to our (extra small) garbage once a month or so.
16	Using green cleaning products	***	Haven’t used caustic/toxic chemicals/bleach cleaners in many months! More info here.
17	Ride my used bike (vs driving)	***	Riding, walking, and using TTC.
18	Buy less!	***	Going down to one income helped with this but I’m very conscious of it now, unlike before.
19	No more nail polish	**	After the thumb surgery last year, I went out and got a mani/pedi… I needed the pampering. That’s the only time… honest!
20	Next car will be green/hybrid/efficient/electric	***	We’re not planning on buying a next car at this point.
21	Replace plastic food packaging & infant toys	***	I’ve managed to get many glass freezer friendly containers but it would be nice if they stacked better when empty. Also, the lids mostly suck, except Frigoverre.
22	No more delivery food	***	Done.
23	Don’t buy from Esso/Exxon	***	Easy. Even that time I got caught with the “extremely low gas” light on…
24	Use Gel-Free Tushies when need to use disposables	x	Not absorbent enough for overnight so we switched to Seventh Generation chlorine-free
25	Don’t shop at Wal-Mart	***	Easy. I don’t even consider it an option.
26	a) Use the car less than 2-3x/wk	***	We use the car 1-2 times a week. We live near transit, parks, groceries, libraries, etc.
26	b) Don’t turn the tap on full	***	This is a silly and difficult habit to break, but it’s working finally.
26	c) If it’s yellow, let it mellow…	x	We bought a dual flush instead. It smells better.
26	d) Turn out lights as I leave room	*	Easy, but I can’t change seem to the habits of the people I live with. The boys are getting good at it, though.
26	e) Navy showers	**	This is a summer-only change. I’ll be back to navy showers when it’s warm again.
26	f) No paper subscriptions	***	Always tempting, but I’m not going to.
26	g) Eat even less meat	*	We went pretty vegetarian for a while & my 3 year old (at the time) had a hard time with it. Meat 4 times/wk is average I think.
26	h) Amalgamate car trips	***	Done. Easy.
26	i) Don’t buy food in non-recyclable plastics (e.g. cherry tomatoes)	**	I do this, but it’s not always easy.
26	j) Cancel catalogues	*	When New Scientist expired we went for the new online only option. I have to talk to the ROM about this…
27	No T-Gel (coal tar) or Head & Shoulders (zinc pyrithione)	***	Found an alternative at The Big Carrot.
28	Use only recycled toilet paper	***	Ridiculously easy.
29	Use the kill-a-watt meter to see what’s sucking energy	*	We did it for a few things but dropped the ball on that one.
30	Use toothbrush with replaceable head	***	All 4 of us use these now.
31	Switch to LED night lights	***	They work great!
32	Fair trade organic loose leaf (low packaging) tea	***	We buy it by the kilo every few months.
33	No trash week	x	I bailed. Too much on my plate to worry about being all extremist.
34	Plant flowers that support the bee population	***	Next spring!
35	Don’t use microwave popcorn	n/a	No microwave, I make it in a pot the old fashioned way!
36	Vegetarian recipe exchange	***	Got some good recipes (email if interested) & everyone was happy to be involved
37	Use organic vegetable & fruit delivery service	***	Great service, but now that it’s nearly harvest time, we’re moving onto a CSA (see #51)
38	Write politicians about stopping the global warming nightmare that is the tar sands	**	Done. I should really do this sort of thing more often, though…
39	Go green for xmas	***	We pretty much bailed on the consumer-palooza that is Christmas for the past 2 years. They rocked.
40	Wash new clothes before wearing to rid them of formaldehyde finish	***	I very rarely buy new clothes, but when I do, I do this.
41	Refer to the “dirty dozen” list & buy organic for the top offenders	***	I have the full list in my phone and refer to it all the time.
42	Bought a hemp shower curtain	***	This shower curtain rocks. No complaints.
43	Don’t buy anything in styrofoam	***	Styro is recycled now in Toronto, but I’ve cut it out of my usage anyway.
44	Buy organic milk, mostly for the benefit of my little guys.	*	Whenever I can get it, I do.
45	Work towards creating less than 1 bag of trash/4 weeks	*	We’re at or just less than 1 full bag/4 weeks and holding steady.
46	Participate in Earth Hour	***	Easy. We should do it more often.
47	Make my own sour cream (since I’m already making my own yogurt)	*	This worked a couple of times (even with lower fat cream) then it stopped working. Still trying to get it right. My sister-in-law is doing it successfully and loves it.
48	Don’t even consider using biofuels (with the exception of used chip oil)	***	This is a ridiculous, yet government mandated, affair.
49	Buy naturally raised beef directly from local farmers	***	Love that beef from beefconnections.ca.
50	Properly dispose of expired meds at household hazardous waste	***	I missed my local Environment Days but have stashed the offenders to disposal at a later date.
51	Buy shares in local organic CSA for summer	***	Loving it.
52	Got an “green” yoga mat for my 3 year old	***	Love the new yoga mat I bought for my little guy but borrow when he’s in bed!
53	Turn off power bars for computer 2	***	Easy. Do it every night. Should have started a long time ago.
54	Use grey water for toilet flushing	*	This fell by the wayside around the accident when I couldn’t lift anything. Will try to get it going again.
55	Use a dry diaper pail	**	Not currently using cloth diapers but we use cloth wipes.
56	Community park clean-up	*	in 2008 but not 2009
57	DIY toothpaste	*	I used it for about a year and then bailed. May go back.
58	Summer savings	*	I stopped using the clothesline and my bike after the accident but we don’t use A/C and I still did navy showers…
59	Events without bottled water	**	I always push for this during our fundraising events. Last time I didn’t even have to push!
60	Dual flush toilet	***	Excellent.
61	Holiday solar LED lights	***	Excellent.
62	Gift free birthday party	**	Last year it went great. This year we don’t have a plan as of yet.
63	Late night laundry	***	Easy.
64	Knitting local and sewing.	**	I make hats for folks with yarn from Kingston, ON now. Have to get better at patching clothes (boys and the knees in jeans, I tell ya…)
65	Hankies	***	Haven’t bought a box of tissue in 6 months, although we do have one on hand for guests.
66	Recycled printing paper	***	Excellent.
67	Cloth napkins redux	***	We use them every day.
68	Re-purposed wood scraps	***	Good fun.

The Story of Stuff

The folks at The Story of Stuff Project have made some more very informative films about cosmetics, cap and trade, and bottled water. Check them out on their site. If you’ve never seen the original, watch it first.

Keeping green

Well, I haven’t had much to write about lately since I haven’t actually taken on any new challenges, or if I have, I haven’t really noticed. That’s the thing, once you’re down this path, you just keep on keeping green, and it becomes second nature. I’ll give you some examples to show our life in the green lane (or maybe it’s life in the bike lane…):

• I picked up our naturally raised local beef from Beef Connections on the weekend (it comes frozen) and brought a cooler with some ice packs in it so I could empty the cardboard boxes it comes in and give them back to the farmers to re-use. They were very happy to have them back and said they could definitely re-use them.
• We re-use ziploc bags (they’re sturdy and easy to wash) and I bring them with me to the Bulk Barn for my bulk shopping to reduce the number of plastic bags we use.
• We sometimes get sausages on a bun at the farmers market which come in a napkin inside a half styro shell. I tell them to keep the shell.
• I bring my tiffin boxes any time we get take-out and they are always a conversation starter, which is great. I’ve told lots of people where to pick them up and am hoping they’ll catch on. I also bring them as our lunch and picnic boxes and am passing the plastic-free message on to local parents.
• I always try to consolidate car trips… like today’s trip to the doctor which took us near Grassroots where I brought my own containers for bulk cleaning vinegar and cleaning baking soda and the Big Carrot where I bought bulk fair trade organic dark chocolate.
• I finally got myself a new bike. Yes, I do try to buy second-hand but for a good quality bike I’m a little nervous buying second hand as I fear I may buy something stolen. I also wanted some advice and to test drive a few. The new bike will get me out even more than before since it rides easier and is lighter (and faster, making a huge difference when the trailer is behind). Oh, and I registered it with the Toronto police bike registry already.
• I finally got my mobile phone bill (which was a ridiculous 5 pages in the new silly-layout-with-large-print format) switched to an e-bill.
• I keep up with my green news online, much of it through Twitter… (another reason I haven’t been blogging: pure laziness since micro-blogging is quicker!) and I’d love to pass on a link to a must-watch TED talk on mass adoption of green-powered (i.e. solar or wind battery charging) electric cars: http://bit.ly/1tRsu 

• I had my husband re-hang my laundry line which fell down in a storm last fall and am back in the habit of hanging laundry outside, taking advantage of the warm wind days when you can dry stuff out there almost as quickly as you can in a dryer! I also try to get my laundry in during the low usage times now that I don’t have someone living in the basement anymore (which stopped the late night laundry for several months).
• I found out Not Far From the Tree is picking fruit in 2 wards this year – one on the west and one on the east side of Toronto, so I will look into going out for some picking this summer.
• I have signed up for our CSA (Plan B Organic Farm) again this year since they did such a stellar job last harvest season and throughout the winter. I look forward to completely local organic produce delivered to my door weekly (we get it bi-weekly in the winter and only a portion is local) again starting this week!
• I’m going through my old clothing (the rest of the stuff in the basement is next) and mending (I’d never have done that a couple of years ago) and purging clothes. Purged clothes, depending on their state, will be given to charity or turned into rags or patches, and the suits will be given to Dress For Success, an organization (with affiliates in Canada, US, Netherlands, Poland, UK, New Zealand, and maybe more) that gives suits to low-income women for interviews and employment.

That’s all I can think of for now, but I just wanted to give a glimpse into the attempts at green living here. Nothing really new, but just trying to incorporate this into all aspects of life.

Sorry for the long lapse in entries. If you have any new challenges to suggest, please leave a comment!

58. Summertime savings

You’ve got to love summer. The warm days lead to so much less energy consumption in my house. For instance:

• I’m back to “navy showers” (get in, get wet, turn off water to wash and shampoo, rinse)
• We dry our clothes on the line (we don’t live in the ‘burbs where unsightly clotheslines are banned. I mean, honestly, what are those suburbanites on?)
• Bike riding is our major form of transportation (mostly taking the place of public transit but some trips that we’d take by car in winter, too). Luckily we live on a major bike route and close to a couple more.
• No heating necessary, and although we have it, we don’t use the air conditioning.
• Generally, everyone uses less lights since the days are longer.

It doesn’t seem like much, but every little bit has to help, and it’s cheaper, which is always a bonus.

Lawn mowers

With the arrival of spring, I just thought I’d pass along a link to the David Suzuki Foundation blog entry regarding gas powered mowers.

From the blog:

Here’s a surprising fact: a standard gas mower can emit the same amount of common air pollutants in one hour as driving a new car for over 550 kms!

Here’s a link to more facts about lawn mowers at cleanairfoundation.org, including:

A gasoline-powered lawnmower run for an hour puts out about the same amount of smog-forming emissions as 40 new automobiles run for an hour.

Each summer weekend, about 2.7 million Canadians mow their lawns, using 40 million gallons of gasoline a year.

Unfortunately, you’ve missed the Home Depot/Clean Air Foundation’s $100 rebate for gas mowers this year, but maybe you can borrow your neighbour’s push or electric mower and get in on it next year!

Happy green mowing.

Manufactured Landscapes

Manufactured Landscapes is a film about and including the jaw-dropping, beautiful international photographs of Canadian photographer Edward Burtynsky, along with a bit of thoughtful and thought-provoking commentary. I found the trailer on youtube:

The official site from Mongrel Media is here.

Edward Burtynsky was also a TED (The Technology, Education, Design conference “brings together the world’s most fascinating thinkers and doers, who are challenged to give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes”) speaker and prize winner in 2005. His TED speech is embedded below.

If you do rent, buy, or borrow (I borrowed my copy from the TPL) and view this film, which you absolutely should, then be sure to view the Stills Gallery with Commentary (accessible from the main DVD menu) as it is almost as interesting as the film itself.

50. Don’t flush your meds

Since I’ve been either pregnant or nursing (for a few months it was both) for 4 years now, I have a lot of meds that have expired in my medicine cabinet. Allergy drugs that I take every fall, cold medicines, even simple pain relievers. Plus children’s medicines that we buy or the doctor gives us and actually end up only using one dosage (one is actually unopened and expired) because we’re not really into drugging our kids. Plus there’s those fish killers and carcinogens that are still hanging around my house unused and undisposed of because I didn’t know where to get rid of them. Since I don’t want these things entering the water system or leaching into the soil, I don’t just want to flush them or chuck them in the garbage. So today I finally asked my friend who works for the city in waste management.

The answer:

You can bring all medications (both expired and non-expired) to HHW Depots and Environment Days.

So that’s my next change: proper disposal of medications.

48. Why I won’t use biofuels…

It’s crazy that the US has made biofuels a part of their energy policy… Here’s a few links to articles on why:

From George Monbiot of the Guardian:

“A recent study by the Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen shows that the official estimates have ignored the contribution of nitrogen fertilisers. They generate a greenhouse gas – nitrous oxide – which is 296 times as powerful as CO2. These emissions alone ensure that ethanol from maize causes between 0.9 and 1.5 times as much warming as petrol, while rapeseed oil (the source of over 80% of the world’s biodiesel) generates 1-1.7 times the impact of diesel(12). This is before you account for the changes in land use.”
http://www.monbiot.com/archives/2007/11/06/an-agricultural-crime-against-humanity/

From the New York Times:

“Almost all biofuels used today cause more greenhouse gas emissions than conventional fuels if the full emissions costs of producing these “green” fuels are taken into account, two studies being published Thursday have concluded.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/08/science/earth/08wbiofuels.html

From Plenty Magazine:

“A study by Swiss scientists recently found that corn ethanol – which demands significant quantities of water and energy to produce – may actually be worse for the environment than regular fossil fuels. That’s a big problem: The US is looking to massively expand its biofuel sector, and corn ethanol remains at the center of its strategy.”
http://www.plentymag.com/blogs/political/2008/01/europes_biofuel_rethink.php

So think twice before you jump on the biofuel-powered bandwagon…

 

Update on February 11:

An article from George Monbiot in the Guardian:

“Apart from used chip fat, there is no such thing as a sustainable biofuel
Even capitalists now admit the oil crisis is real. But their solutions border on lunacy as they avoid the obvious answer”
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/feb/12/biofuels.energy

Update on April 15:

Another article from George Monbiot:

“From this morning all sellers of transport fuel in the United Kingdom will be obliged to mix it with ethanol or biodiesel made from crops. The World Bank points out that ‘the grain required to fill the tank of a sports utility vehicle with ethanol … could feed one person for a year’. ” http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/apr/15/food.biofuels

Update on April 19:

Another article in the Guardian by Ian Traynor (GOOD NEWS!):

“The European commission is backing away from its insistence on imposing a compulsory 10% quota of biofuels in all petrol and diesel by 2020, a central plank of its programme to lead the world in combating climate change.” http://www.guardian.co.uk/environment/2008/apr/19/biofuels.food