Reduce Paper Waste by Opting for Paperless Bills

You can reduce the amount of unnecessary paper waste by opting to recieve billing or banking statements electronically.  I have been able to switch many of my bills to electronic versions as seen in the following list:

• Auto Insurance – I signed up for automatic withdrawal.  The only statements I recieved are policy renewals or bills that have a different amount of withdrawal than normal.
• Bank Statements – The only downside of my recent switch of financial institutions is that the new bank does not yet offer paperless statements.
• Credit Cards – some offer the service and some don’t.  Check with your institution.
• Phone – both my landline and cell phone services allow my to do business online instead of through mailing statements.
• Car loan – not offered
• Cable (television and Internet) – yes!
• Utilities – both the water and electricity mail statements out while my recycling pickup is done online.
• Student Loans – yes!

There are services out there that help you reduce the amount of junk mail you receive.  Keep an eye out for a future post on the subject.

Organic Vegetable Garden with a Raised Bed Part 3 of 3

2008 – The Gardening Year in Review

Gardening has changed my life.  I never thought I would have much of a desire to grow my own food, and I have a new respect for both farmers and gardeners who toil in the soil.  It is not easy work and takes more care and attention than I would have every suspected.  It is hard and rewarding work.  For first time gardeners, I am proud of the fact that we took the time to get our hands in the soil and to produce some food for the dinner table.  Even while I was trying to clean up the garden for the winter, I was looking forward to expanding our efforts next year and applying all of our lessons learned from this rookie years.  And, boy, were there a lot of lessons.

Leave more space between the different plants!  The tomatoes we grew along one side of the raised bed tried to take over the rest.  The pumpkins and watermelon reached as much as 18 feet in both directions – even depositing one watermelon through a chain link fence in the neighbor’s yard!

Pay attention to your garden!  Even though we started late in the year, we had some great results.  But, you have have a relatively small window for picking the plants at the right time.  This was our biggest failure – letting plants go to long before trying to pick them.

I won’t go into detail about the results of each plant, but I did get a lot of use out of the cayenne peppers, some of the lettuce, a few tomatoes, and some green onion.  The kids had several of the sugar snaps.  I look forward to altering the menu for 2009.

How organic was the garden?

We used several inches and hundreds of pounds of organic top soil.  We never added any fertilizer and will hopefully have compost ready for next year.  The parts of the bed were untreated wood and galvanized nails and screws.  However, I can’t confirm that the plants my wife purchased were of the organic origin;  she did buy them from a local nursery.  Either way, we are well on our way to organic gardening bliss.

Looking ahead to 2009

For next year, we are planning on expanding our selection by moving the tomatoes away from the raised bed and possibly installing a second bed.  Before the first frost hit, I began clearing out an overgrown flower bed in the corner of the year.  I pulled a third of it by hand using a shovel to pull up the roots;  there were so many plants and weeds that I thought it would be best to simply start over for next year.  Well, the cold weather hit, and I will have to finish in the early spring.

Taking out an old Flower Garden

Using LED technology to Light my home through a power outage

The recent ice storm that hit the midwest resulted in a 28 hour power outage.  We lost many branches from trees in the year – some of which fell onto the hosue.  Fortunately, our gutters seem to be in decent shape, but we did manage to get a bit of water in the basement once it all melted.

Traditionally, I have used candles to light my way through an eventing of no electricity at home.  While these are certainly cheap and easy to use, I hesistate to use them for a few reasons.  First, the mix of young children and an open fire in the house is an accident waiting to happen.  Second, paraffin wax candles are made from petroleum and give off the equivalent of diesel exhaust when burned (according to The Green Book from Three Rivers Press).  So, I opted to head to the hardware store and look for alternatives.  Here is what I found…

• Bell & Howell Mini Power Pod (as seen on TV!) ($9.99) – This is a set of 4 LED tap lights that provided us with a substitute for carrying a candle around the house.  They are actually designed to be installed anywhere light is need – a closet, kitchen, shelf, or garage.  The peal and stick to just about any surface and provided 1000 hours of light.  I purchased a package of 4 at Target for $9.99 – AAA batteries were NOT included.
• Sylvania Dot-it ($7.98)- Before finding the package above at Target, Lowe’s has these LED tap lights for $7.98 – batteries were included.  Essentially, this is the same product as above.
• Sylvania LED Power Failure Light ($9.98) – This unit serves 3 different functions.  Plug it into a wall outlet and it serves as a LED nightlight with an automatic sensor to turn it on and off.  If power goes out to the circuit or home, the rechargable batteries turn the unit on automatically.  Lastly, unplug it from the wall, fold in the prongs, and use it as a flashlight.
• Energizer Everyready LED flashlight ($5.97) that runs on 2 AA batteries.  It has a magnet attached that makes it simple to keep at the side of the fridge ready at a moment’s notice.

Sylvania LED Power Failure Light

The taplights gave me the piece of mind of protection from fire and they low wattage were a better green alternative to save energy.  The flightlight’s magnet attachment make it handy for the kitchen.  All of these units run on LED technology and therefore use far less energy than their predecessors.

Conversion to Energy Efficient Lighting with CFLs

Save energy, Save money

Over the course of the past year, I have been gradually replacing my incandescent light bulbs with the energy efficient compact fluorescents, or CFLs.  To keep the initial cost down, I decided to install a CFL when any incandescent went out.  However, I came to realize that I was actually spending more money by keeping the energy guzzling incandescents installed.  A single CFL uses 75% less energy for the same amount of light, or lumen, over the lifetime of the bulb and lasts as long as 10 incandescents.  Sounds like sound financial advice to me!

CFLs have been getting more and more space on the shelves at retail stores in recent years.  The price has finally come down to about $2 or $2.25 a bulb (sometimes less when discounted).  The technology has gotten better over the years as the flickering is no longer an issue and they now come in multiple sizes (and colors) to fit just about any light fixture you have in the house.

I have nearly completed replacing every incandescent bulb in my house – a total of 43 bulbs so far.  All I have left is to purchase 10 of the dimmable CFLs for my ceiling fixture in the dining room which will run me about $60 at Home Depot for the specialty bulbs.  There are 2 more bulbs in the basement that I have not yet replaced because I haven’t seen the size in a CFL.  I never use that room, so I am not going to waste my time on it until we decide to remodel the room.

How do I know what kind of bulb to buy?

Anyone who has been raised in the United States will know that a 60 watt bulb gives off less light than a 100 watt bulb.  We know intuitively what bulb wattage we need for what purpose in the home – it’s almost instinct.  The introduction of CFLs is causing us to change out terminology and relearn our home lighting needs.  The CFL equivalent to a 60 watt bulb is not a 60 watt CFL – it is a 13 watt CFL.  It gives off the same amount of light, but at a much lower wattage.  Another example is a 100 watt incandescent that is replaced by a 23 watt CFL.

When looking at the amount of light a bulb gives off, it is no longer practical to talk about wattage.  The term that gives you a more accurate picture is lumens.  See the chart below to compare some of the bulbs I have installed in my home.

Manufacturer	Type	Wattage	Lumens
Bright Effects	40 watt replacement “candle”	7 watts	280
Bright Effects	60 watt replacement	13 watts	800
CXL Commercial Extended Life	60 watt replacement	15 watts	900
Feit Electric ECObulb plus	75 watt replacement	18 watts	1100
GE	100 watt replacement	26 watts	1750
Bright Effects	100 watt replacement	23 watts	1600

While the most common light bulbs area readily available at reasonable prices, there are a lot of specialty bulbs that have a higher price tag.  It took a while for me to find a “candle” type of bulb that would fit into a ceiling chandelier.  A pack of 2 cost about $10.00 at Lowe’s.  It appears that the local utility company, Ameren, has partnered with retailers like Home Depot and Sam’s club to offer discounted pricing on energy efficient lighting and I think I can get the candle bulbs for about half of that price.  If so, I will be able to nearly complete my conversion.  For more details on Ameren’s Act On Energy program, click here.

Are CFLs dangerous?

They can be.  Any flourescent light bulb including the CFLs contain a small amount of mercury which can be a particular hazard to young children and pregnant women.  The EPA recommends that in the case of a breakage that the area be evacuated for 15 minutes and then cleanup up promptly.  Check out their recommendations here.  While I am not exactly thrilled that there is a possibility of a small hazard in the house, I am hopeful that this is a short term risk as LED lighting seems to be a just a few years away from breaking into a wider market of common bulbs at affordable prices.  Here’s hoping.

For the same reasons, CFLs must be recycled once they have finally kicked the bucket.  The waste basket it no placed for a CFL because the mercury content will eventually get released into the landfill and into nature.

Hosting a Green Thanksgiving

The recent Thanksgiving holiday was my first real effort in reducing waste at a family gathering.  My wife and I hosted both sides of our families in separate events at the house.  We took some significant steps to ensure that we had a healthy and tasty meal that had a minimal amount of waste.

The highlight of the meal (and our green efforts) was the turkey.  For the first time in my life, I took time to reserve a turkey.  We purchased a 16 pound turkey through Pottstown Deli in the Metro Center in Peoria.  When it comes to purchasing food and going green, locally grown food is the wiser choice.  The average American meal travels 1500 miles to get to the plate;  by acquiring food locally, you help reduce energy by minimizing transportation and assist the business of local farms.   Our turkey hailed from Amish County Kitchens in Loda, Illinois.  It was a 16 pound bird that was labeled as free range with no growth hormones, antibiotics, or animal by-products.  The extra expense for the main course was repaid in a delicious meal and the knowledge that we provided a quality meal for our families.

As I shopped for ingredients for the rest of the dishes, I tried to include as many organic items as I could including the eggs for the deviled eggs, potatoes for the mashed potatoes, celery and onions for the stuffing, and even frozen bags of organic corn and green beans.  With my wife’s excellent cooking, everything turned out perfect.  Except for the pumpkin pie.  The cans of organic pumpkin provided the only disappointment of the event, as the pie had a bit of a white coating and tasted… well, not very good.  Thankfully, Teresa was making the pies the night before, so I did not hesitate to make the additional trip to the store for 2 cans of Libby’s.  Thus, I was able to salvage my favorite part of the Thanksgiving meal.

My wife has such a large family that the favored dinnerware at gatherings is paper plates and plastic #6 nonrecyclable cups.  Since we were hosting the event, I decided that we should use our everday dishes to limit the massive amount of waste.  I had resigned myself to the fact that I would be washing more dishes than usual.  We had plenty of cups and utensils but were lacking in the plate department.  That was easily rectified as we made the decision to begin replacing our current dinner set, by buying 4 dinner plates and 4 salad plates.

Overall, my efforts to green my first holiday was a success. I suppose the next step would be to make the entire meal out of organic food, but I would rather test out each of the ingredients to avoid the near catastrophe with the pumpkin pie.  Maybe we will be able to include ingredients from our organic vegetable garden next year.