A Deeper Green

So after my last installment of Ask-A-Brekke I got a lot of questions. I will do my best to answer them all. I promise.

But today I am tackling one a received from a friend through text “Do a post about indoor composting and why I should bother.”

Now those of you who have been reading for a while know that I have been doing my own in apartment composting with worms (vermiculture). As far as I’ve been able to tell, this is the best way to do small space/indoor composting. First off, vermiculture, when done correctly, is virtually odorless.  Bins may give off the scent of wet earth when opened but that’s it. Second, the final compost from a vermiculture bin is a great fertilizer for any indoor (or outdoor) plants that you may have around. And lastly, worms are great, super low maintenance pets

But that still leaves the main question. Why should I bother composting at all?

The truth is that much of the food waste that you and I create every day can be composted, especially fruit and vegetable matter. If you are not composting it or eating it the waste goes into the garbage can and eventually ends up in a landfill. What happens to that food in the landfill you ask? Well not much. Food that is put into a landfill and compacted decays very slowly.

I don’t have exact numbers, they probably depend on many factors, but I can say that depending on the waste I add to my worm bin it can be gone within two weeks. Stuff that is harder to break down may take a couple months.  And when it is all broken down into tasty compost it has a purpose. It can help create new plant material. I’m pretty sure in a landfill your food waste just becomes wasted energy.

Does that give you enough why bother info?

So as it is December I know many of us are starting to get into crazy gifting mode. I previously did a green gifting post, but decided that I wanted to do something a little different this year. I won’t be buying much in the way of gifts as I really don’t have the income to afford gifts for all my many many family members.

But I will still be giving presents and I thought I would share some of my thought processes with you, my lovedly readers. These thought processes are not to give you a “guide” to anything, but are an effort to encourage you to think outside the box when it comes to green holiday-ing and gift-giving.

Since the holidays can always be a little overwhelming for me on the money front, and I really can’t foresee not giving gifts to the special people in my life (especially when they are always going to give me nice gifts) I spent a lot of time this fall thinking of alternatives.

In my gift giving in general I have tried to move away from stuff based gifts to a more experience based gift giving philosophy. It’s worked pretty well, and honestly its made gift giving easier for those few people in my life who seem to already have everything. But the problem with experiences as gifts is that they tend to add up in price. Which is something I can’t really handle financially this year.

So, after spending a lot of time thinking about my best solution, I decided that I should move to a more “create-a-gift” approach for this year. Lately, I’ve been flexing my baking skills (made a pumpkin and apple pie from scratch for thanksgiving this year with stuff from the farmers market!). And I always like a good excuse to be crafty. So with those powers combined I think I’ve managed to come up with some really good gift ideas.

I will be baking mini breads and cookies. I’ve also concieved of an idea to make scented and colored bath salts (Epsom salts and essential oils, combined!). I will be making mix CDs and using old wrapping paper and cards to decorate. I’m using my creativity to put together the best gifts for everyone that I possibly can.

Will I still buy a few things? Yes, of course. I plan on buying baskets and probably a few crafty materials. The farmer’s market also has some great local honey and bee wax items that will flesh out my gifts nicely. But despite these purchases, I am feeling really good about the thoughtfulness, environmentally friendliness  and tastiness of my holiday gifts.

What kind of gifts might you be able to give that reflect your personalities and views while still being exciting to your… um… giftees (?)? What changes can you make in your holiday routine that will help you to be a greener and happier person this holiday season?

I know that if I came up with some ideas you can too. So think about it, and feel free to share your ideas here.

Also, in the green community there was a nifty push last week to celebrate Buy Nothing Day as a counterpoint to “Black Friday”. This fits nicely in with this post, so I gathered together a couple posts I saw about “Buy nothing day” for you to read at your leisure:

Boycott Black Friday and celebrate Buy Nothing Day, via Twilight Earth

Thanksgiving, Buy Nothing Day & my travel mug, via fakeplasticfish

Have a great day

So to start off the day at MEEC, we were treated to a great and inspiring speech by Chad Pregracke, the driving force behind Living Lands and Waters. He spoke of his fantastic journey from a 17 year old kid who wanted to clean up the Mississippi River to the creation of Living Lands and Waters and on to what may even be a TV show on the Discovery Channel.

I was totally inspired and was so glad to be reminded that there are people out there that have accomplished things like this. People who are interested in making our world a better, cleaner place. People who are making a difference every day.

I don’t even think I can describe how fantastic it was to hear Chad speak today, but I can leave you with a link to his book From the Bottom Up: One man’s crusade to clean America’s river.

I have not read the above book, but I am planning on buying a copy of my own and providing a review here if there’s no room on your reading list right now.

Basically, just know that this is an organization with a great story and a great spokesman who is out there making the case for cleaning up our rivers, one piece of trash at a time

Some links to info about Chad and Living Lands and Waters:

~ You Should Know… Chad Pregracke, Chicago Magazine

~ Chad Pregracke: Garbage man of the Mississippi, MSNBC

~ Dude over troubled Water, Outside Online

~ Lending a Hand, Living Lands & Waters, Big River Magazine

So I’m fairly certain I’ve made my position on eating meat fairly clear. Environmentally, meat is bad news. There are also all sorts of other reasons that people talk about being vegetarian or for that matter vegan.

Today I had my attention drawn to this article by Jonathan Safran Foer published in the New York Times. Here he looks at vegetarianism in a very interesting and accessible way.

I recommend that you read it an digest it. It’s not a perfect article in any way. It only hints at the food politics behind much of the factory farming that goes on in this country, and mentions nothing about the ills of other animal products (like milk, eggs and cheese). Still, its worth a read, and as always, its worth taking stock of your own eating habits. Can you make a difference at the dinner table tonight?

So today I woke up to some disheartening news. A 20 cent carry-out bag tax looks as though it will fail in Seattle. This would mean all paper and plastic bags usually handed out at grocery stores would cost the consumer 20 cents each. The current voting tally is 58% against 42% for in a mail-in ballot effort.

Now I am not really sure that a bag tax is the best way to go. Bag bans always seemed like a much more definitive option to me, but the effort working behind this bit of news really does give me pause.

There is only one other American city that has a carry-out bag tax in place, Washington D.C., but in other countries this is fairly common practice. I remember when I was in Italy for a school trip and visiting a small grocery store, my plastic bag cost .05 euro. It was very sturdy and I was able to use it for the rest of the trip in grocery stores and also used it for carry-on on the plane home. And this was 5 years ago.

For small stores it makes sense to charge for bags, its something small grocery stores in the US and other countries have been doing for years.

There were special circumstances to the Seattle tax. Small stores would have been able to keep the full earnings on the tax, but larger stores would have only been able to keep 5 cents from each bag. The rest was to be used by the city for recycling programs and environmental education. Some voters expressed concerns about how the tax would be spent when talking about their decision to cast a vote against the tax.

My point in talking about all of this is to simply bring up that this tax does not seem unreasonable but that is does seem like the wrong way to be going about lowering plastic bag use.  There are 9 cities with plastic bag bans in the U.S. and while I don’t have the statistics on how these bans are working in those places, it would seem like it can’t be a bad idea to investigate a total ban.

I usually take reusable bags to the grocery store and others with me, but I will admit to forgetting occasionally and having to accept plastic bags at check out. And I will freely admit that my fruit from the farmers market is typically placed in a plastic bad before being handed to me.

I’ve had a difficult time finding the right size and type of bags to offer to the vendors as an alternative, but if a ban were in place wouldn’t a new market for the exact type of bag needed open up? If I couldn’t get plastic when I forget to bring an extra bag and need to make a trip to target would it really be that big of a deal? Wouldn’t I just get another, more useful bag instead and be less likely to forget next time?

So basically, after all that rambling my point is this. If bag taxes don’t work because of concerns about where the money is going and how it is being used (and because the plastic companies had millions of dollars to spend on campaigns against the taxes) isn’t it time to start thinking about other alternatives? Maybe bans are the right way to go in some places. But maybe just have an incentive program to encourage stores to phase out plastic bags or provide reusable options might be just as effective and less of a headache?

I’m not exactly sure, but it seems like there must be a better way to do it. I keep thinking about the sturdy plastic bag that I got from a tiny grocery store in Rome and used successfully for three more weeks. There are no perfect solutions, but it seems like there are several better ways of looking at the plastic bag problem and I am just encouraging you to think about them.

For more info on the Seattle tax:

Plastic News

MSNBC

Dear Brekke,

I know that the best thing to do would be to not shave my legs, but seriously?!? That’s just not gonna happen. I wear skirts to work! What is an ecofriendly shaver to do?

You’re Awesome!

~ Crazy shaver

Dear Crazy,

As members of a society where hairy legs (and armpits and even sometimes faces) can get you a weird look or two walking down the street, it’s strange how difficult it can be to find ecofriendly shaving options. Those with easy to shave bits (read mostly smooth lined faces) have it easy as they can break our a straight razor and look great doing it. Those of us with more delicate areas (like knees!) to shave may have a more difficult time though.

My best advice to you would be to invest in shaving soap as opposed to spray on shaving foam and to use a recyclable razor. Additionally a razor sharpener is probably a good investment.

But wait?!? You are uncertain where you can find the above wonders? Well lucky for you Ask a Brekke has all the links you need.

~ For shaving soap try Simmons Aloe Vera. It comes in citrus! That’s way better than the random berry smell we usually get.

~ For a better razor look into Preserve. They make the handles of their razors and toothbrushes from recycled plastic and they come with a pouch to send them back for more recycling. You might be able to find them at a local store, but if not… www.drugstore.com

~ Want to sharpen those blades and extend their life? Try the Razor Saver. I’ve read some mixed reviews about it on the internet, but the consesus seems to be that it works well if you insert a two-blade razor and run it back and forth across the sharpening surface a few times.

And there you go!

Hope this helps, and I wish you happy shaving for the whole summer.

(This was not an actual written-in question. A friend mentioned wanting to know about eco-friendly shaving and I just got silly. Whatever, you know you were amused at least a little.)

This is just a quick update to say that I LOVE my new glass straw, it has proved easy to use and easy to clean. I plan on buying at least one or two more in the nearish future and encourage all of my readers to do the same. I’ve already recruited interested commentors to my cause, so I should be able to recruit some of you too

www.glassdharma.com

No… at least I don’t think so…

Today I got a box containing a pound of red wiggler worms. I am really excited for the opportunity to be composting even more of my household food waste. I got a second bin identical to the first and got the worms all settled in. They are currently stacked in a worm bin tower under the kitchen table, where I feel they are likely to stay.

Also, since I was able to buy so many worms I decided to share my wealth of composting friends with a co-worker of mine. I even created a mini bin for her with a bunch of my new worms. I love spreading worm composting further and further! Now if only I could get my parents in on it…

Also today I spent some quality time with my first bin. It seems to be moving along beautifully. There is a mild smell to the bin, but it is similar to a freshly tilled garden, so I figure is it only a good thing

Has anyone else out there been worm composting? Is it working for you?

So this fantastic place, Glass Dharma, sells glass straws. Earlier this month they were giving away a free straw to the first 500 comers. Originally I was going to get myself a free straw, but after further perusal of the site I was going to go ahead and buy one. This is a company that deserves my support, and yours!

My Straw!

Why a glass straw you ask? Well, its very simple. Every time you go out to eat, you are given a straw, and very likely you use it. Straws are fantastic things. That little bit of plastic uses petroleum to make, and takes years, and years, and years to break down in the environment. There is even a large amount of partially disentegrated plastic floating out in what is called the Pacific Gyre, read about it here. All of this is adding up to fact that the less plastic used in daily life, the better.

I know that a straw is a very small amount of plastic, but if we say I use, on average, 2 straws while eating out a week that means that I am saving 104 straws every year. And while its minimal savings on the planet front, you know I am of the opinion that every little bit helps.

Also you’ll notice in the picture that there is a silver holder for the straw that I also ordered from Glass Dharma. I’m looking foward to carrying around my new straw and using it pretty much everywhere

Please look into getting a glass straw of your own. This is a great product that is made from the strongest glass that you can get commercially, so it can take some rough handling and will be something you can use for year and years to come.

This also plays into a new philosophy on shopping that I am hoping to adopt; if I am going to look at it in 5 years and go “what the heck did I buy this for?” , I am not buying the item. I want to be investing my money in long lasting, useful items that I can enjoy for the foreseable future. This is a new thought coming out of my attempts to clean-out my old room at my parents house. It’s unbelievable the stuff that I accumulated as a teenager! Look for more on it later.

Ok, well that’s it for now. Have a good night

**Edit**

Glass Dharma actually backs up each of their straws with a lifetime guarantee against breakage. This is going to be one of the best investments I’ve made in a long time. I can tell!

There is a special place in my heart for the farmers of this world. They work long and hard hours for a pretty unpredictable income and they put delicious food on my table. For that they all get a tip of the hat from me.

I once volunteered a couple Saturdays of my time at an organic farm and was blown away by the amount of work required of these men and women. I also happen to have a 150-acre family farm (or at least my mom and my great uncle co-own the farm so its kinda mine-ish?). We don’t farm it, we rent it to some people who farm it for us.  There is a little creek with small trees growing on it that runs through the center of the property. It’s a beautiful place.

All of that being said, I will get to the point of this entry. I’ve heard and read many stories about ranchers in the more southern and west states adding windmills to their ranches. I mean if we are talking about land that feeds cows and doesn’t do a whole lot else why not add a windmill or two right? But, I have always wondered why the use of alternative fuels isn’t more widespread among farmers. They have all that land. I always assumed, rightly, that it had to do with the prohibitive costs of making the switch on a personal level. But as alternative energies march into cheaper territory it looks like some farmers may be jumping on board, in a big way.

Read an article about farmers in New York looking at energy alternatives here.

I can’t help but wonder if this can’t be made into something more fantastic. I mean why not pay farmers to use extra land or roof space to provide energy needs for surrounding areas? Farm subsidies, as far as I can tell, end up paying farmers to not farm pieces of land, why can’t they also help farmers produce their own energy, and why can’t they stabalize a rate for those farmers to sell extra energy? These are all things I hope get addressed as parts of the answer to our energy issues in the near future.

And in case you were wondering, my favorite type of alternative energy is solar (all types, but especially passive, just cause its nifty how things work). I also like kinetic energy, but its a bit more unwieldy and requires people to be moving to create power and therefore is less useful. I know, you totally wanted that bit of personal information on me