It's Easy Being Green

Have you ever thought about just how much goes into producing a tiny staple?  It’s one of the many surprisingly small items that when you look at the big picture, have a fairly large impact on our environment.  Friends of the Earth, an environmental advocacy group, says if 10 Million office workers each used one less staple a day it would save 120 tons of steel a year.  120 tons!

So, how do I use one less staple you might ask?  Well, you could use a product you use over and over like a paper clip or you could simply dog-ear the pages you want to stick together.  Or, you could use a handy staple free stapler created by a company called Made by Humans.  The small gadget cuts a hole in the stack of papers you want to attach together and then stitches the flaps down on the back of the last page as you pull the stack out.  You get five color choices and it will attach up to 5 sheets of paper together.

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If you have any roses in your garden, make them even more productive with some simple composting.  Roses need potassium to boost their flower production resulting in some nice, lush blooms.  They can get plenty of potassium if you simply push banana peels into the soil at the base of your rose plants.  So, have a banana for breakfast and feed your rose too!

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In 2007, the Oxford English Dictionary’s Word of the Year was “locavore”.  A locavore is a person who eats exclusively locally grown food.  It may sound like an easy task to undertake eating only what is produced in your local area but you may find the idea a bit more difficult to stomach that you might originally think.

The global marketplace has opened up markets near and far spanning our great globe.  As a result, much of our produce at the supermarket could be making a trip 3,000 miles or more in the making just to get to our dinner tables.  That trip turns into a major waste of natural resources and there are many long-term environmental impacts of transporting produce all that way.  Not to mention that it has been in transport for about two weeks by the time it arrives at the store.  So, it was either picked way before it was actually ripe or it’s been genetically modified to survive the long journey and maintain its “freshness”.

These days it’s fairly easy to spot produce grown in a far away market.  Just look for the static sticker to see where it was grown.  You might feel like you’re taking an around the world cruise just in the produce department by reading grown-in labels from Chile, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, New Zealand and the list goes on and on.  Many grocery store chains like our local Albertson’s have realized the locavore movement and now specifically point out locally grown produce in their sale fliers.  Health food and natural food stores have been the leader in this arena for sometime, taking careful note of where all their food is coming from and it’s far reaching impacts.

If you truely believe in the locavore movement, you might have to make some major modifications to the meals you eat depending on the season you’re in.  Follow this link and take a look at what produce is available in each season near you.  For instance, here in Arizona we don’t have any produce listed as locally grown right now.  Our last listed harvest was in December and was for pecans.  You certainly can’t just live off pecans until produce becomes available in June again, so you might have to make some adjustments to your comfortable radius that produce comes from.  While many are die hards about this movement and stick to a 100 Mile Diet, I tend to think a little wider when it comes to my produce.

If you’d like to learn more about the produce grown in your region, head over to the Local Harvest website to check out small farms and farmers markets in your area.  Happy eating!

Do you think you could be a locavore?  How committed could you be to eating locally grown foods?

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Here’s another interesting toilet upgrade that can help you save water in the long run.  The Sink Positive is a toilet tank lid replacement that could help you use less water and encourage healthy hand washing.  The lid replacement includes a small sink that turns on after you flush the toilet.  As the water runs out of the tap and down the drain, it refills your toilet bowl.  It’s a simple idea that could be effective and essentially refills your toilet using grey water.  Apparently the design has been popular in Japan for some time now but is just now catching on in the U.S.

I personally think the sink would make more sense if you could turn it on whenever you wanted but nonetheless it’s a smart idea.  To find out more about the Sink Positive, visit their website.

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Reduce, reuse and recycle…we all know the now popular mantra.  It was driven into my head as a kid in elementary school every Earth Day and consequently has urged me to turn into the “greenie” I am today.  When it comes to recycling we usually don’t think of building our homes out of recycled materials.  But one Mississippi grandma took the idea to a whole new level.  After a storm practically demolished her wood-framed house, she had another idea that could just take off.  Check out her high-flying home and maybe it will provide you with a little inspiration for your next recycling project!

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With all the talk of the sub-prime mortgage crisis and the glut of foreclosures, why not talk about something positive when it comes to getting a mortgage and living a greener lifestyle.  I’m not yet a homeowner.  The real estate market is just too out of reach for first-time homebuyers like us.  That’s why we plan to move by the end of the year.  Ideally, I’d like to be in our first home by the Summer of ‘09.   In the meantime, I like to keep up on the trends of the current housing market and mortgage market including “green mortgages”.

The idea of green mortgages reportedly started in 1979 with President Jimmy Carter.  His idea was to make lenders offer incentives to consumers to buy or make their current homes more energy efficient.  It’s amazing to think that at the time, our President had the forethought even then to help out our environment!  The savings of energy efficient homes can often be considered income, allowing some families to purchase a bigger house.  These days lenders that offer green mortgages often set them up in different ways.

The first is a lender’s discount to purchase an energy efficient home.  Some will take a chunk of money out of your closing costs while others will give borrowers more credit and a small amount of money off the closing costs.  If you’re buying an older home, some lenders will qualify the buyer for more than the purchase price of the house.  This extra money is for you to put toward upgrading insulation, installing energy efficient windows and a/c units.  The long-term savings of those upgrades is factored into your income, thus allowing you to qualify for more house.

But, there are some catches because it’s not just free money.  If you don’t make the upgrades and squander away the extra money the lender qualified you for, they could put an escrow on that amount of money when you go to sell your house.  So, it’s essential that if you’re going to make the commitment to the lender to make your home more eco-friendly that you follow through on your end of the deal.  Many states are also offering incentives now as well for the purchase of a green home.  To find out more, you can head to the National Association of State Energy Officials website to find contact information for your state energy representatives.  Then you can ask them what incentives they’re offering for energy efficient homes and renovations.

A green mortgage is just another simple step in the process of living a greener life, proving it truly can be easy going green!

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I like to compost my kitchen scraps but haven’t ever thought about composting human waste. That was until I found out there’s a new book out on the subject. Now don’t get me wrong, I’m all for living in a sustainable environment but I’m not about to start composting my waste to fertilize my vegetable garden. The idea just doesn’t sit well with me. However, some people might have an interest in the subject.

Joseph Jenkins, author of “The Humanure Handbook” will be speaking down in Prescott next week on March 12th, 7:30pm, downstairs at the Crossroads. The book Jenkins wrote talks about how human waste can be recycled using natural processes and not harmful chemicals. If you’d like to buy a copy of his book or read a free online version, you can head to his website for Humanure.

What do you think? Could you compost your own family’s waste and fertilize your vegetable garden with it? Is it a mind over matter situation? Share your thoughts.

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