Changes in my Ecological Footprint

So when I began this quarter I started off with 5.06 earths to sustain my life cycle. I committed to changing:

• What I ate. I reduced the amount of red meat I ate and increased the amount of plant based foods instead. I was also able to reduce the amount of meals a week with animal based products.
• I tried to buy organic food, but the costs were too high to sustain that lifestyle choice at this time, so I committed to eating the food I had in my pantry and reduce the amount of trips to the grocery store.
• I tried carpooling with my roommates to Seattle instead of driving separately, which did not actually work as well as I hoped, but I reduced the amount of trips I had planned for myself instead.
• Instead of heading to a coffee shop to study, I stayed home and used the tea and coffee already there in my own ceramic cups. But if I did go to the coffee shops on my way to school or on campus I brought my own to-go cup.
• I increased the amount of composting and recycling at home and at school.

Through these efforts I was able to reduce my carbon footprint to 3.09 earths. I find that amazing! There is still more that can be done, but at this time I am doing the best I can. The changes I've made are different from what I am used to, but they are not too extreme where they are difficult to fulfill. I am confident I can continue these practices for a long time and increasing them later on as I am able. Throughout the my last year as a student I am going to continue doing what I have been to reduce my carbon footprint, and then after I enter into the real world I will further increase my ability to buy organic and greener products.

All I can say is what a transformation!

Interior Designing take a green step

Before I became a marketer, I was studying Interior Design. I studied the fabrics and furniture from ancient and antique to the modern materials of today.

One of the biggest movements in the industry in the 90's was to create a fabric or carpet that would survive pretty much anything a person could through at it. Which included a lot of nylon and polyester, which were derived from the raw material available. Carpet is the worst because once installed it off-gases toxins into the air.

Today, the industry is following the green movement and creating green fabrics and carpets from recycled materials, which can be recycled after your finished with it. One of these companies is Kravet. It has created a complete line of fabrics and materials made from 100% recycled polyester, not treated with any additional chemicals, and are water based products and environmentally approved dyes. Their color options encompasses the green movement of the products by representing their colors as fire, earth and ocean.

If you are looking to change your home furnishings, look for green alternatives!

Check out Kravet's options at:

www.kravetgreen.com

Diapers

Some of my friends are beginning to or are having children and so I decided to research what happens with the diapers after they are used. As a past babysitter I have to admit the act of changing a baby is much better when you can just throw the thing in a diaper genie and be done with it, but what is that costing the environment in the long run.

We have adapted from the existence of human's from using cloth to cover ourselves and leaves to clean with to a society that loves disposable anything as long as it is convenient. Now some would say that we have developed into a superior society where these thoughts of convenience are now possible, but at what cost? How can we be a superior society if we end up destroying what we have?

According to my searches there is a new push to bringing cloth diapers back into use. Our grandparents and possibly even parents grew up wearing cloth diapers that their parents had to clean afterwards and they lived through it. A typical baby wears a diaper for 2 to 3 years old, in the grand scheme of someone's life span that is not very long. What is so wrong with using reusable diapers? It would save the amount of garbage that goes into the landfill and are easier on the environment.

This got me thinking what I would be able to do as a future parent, would I be able to reuse diapers? I am interested in alternatives for helping save the environment, but I don't know if I could handle cleaning and reusing cloth diapers. I am a self diagnosed germ phobic and there would be a lot of hurdles for me to over come just to even try it.

Here is a website where I found several options about cloth diapers and how to care for them, there are also links to other websites that might be useful as well.

http://eartheasy.com/live_clothdiapers.htm

What are or would you do?

Oh Where, Oh Where Did All the Jobs Go?

In the spirit of the economy I decided to research "Green" jobs. I actually found a list of the top ten Environmentally friendly jobs for the next decade.

A lot of the jobs listed were directly related to the earth, like farming, but there were some that were business oriented environmental MBAs listed. With graduation approaching the job market is looking pretty bleak, moving towards green movement businesses might just be the way to go.

Visit this website to see the complete list of jobs:

http://www.fastcompany.com/articles/2009/01/best-green-jobs.html

Half-Way Point

Well we've reached the middle of the quarter. It has certainly gone by quickly.

The goals I created to help in reducing my carbon footprint were:

• To try and cut out eating animal products one meal a day or when I do eat animal products try and use organic.
• When I do use my car, I am going to try and develop a ride share schedule around town or to Seattle with my roommates, so that each of us aren’t driving to the same locations in our own vehicles.
• When I go to a coffee shop to study instead of getting a paper to-go cup and composting it later, instead getting a ceramic cup to use while I am there.
• Increase my recycling habits and become better about composting regularly.

After taking a step back to think about the goals I had originally set, I realized I potentially created a problem where I was not going to be able to uphold my goals as much as I would want to. Instead of buying organic foods all the time, I changed commitment to eating the food I already have before taking a trip to the store to stock up on more items. Which I have been able to keep-up very well, the amount of food that was in my pantry and refrigerator has diminished quite a bit and I am able to save money in the process.

With my other goals, I am continuing to uphold those commitments. The major goal I am having trouble with is the ability to ride share with my roommates or friends on trips down south, our schedules and wants are just not meeting up to where it would work out. But I have reduced the amount of trips I had panned at the beginning of the quarter which has helped reduce the amount of driving I would have done.

Recently I have had a disagreement with my roommates about turning on the heat in the house. I have been able to help keep my room warmer by installing thermal curtains at the window to reduce the amount of cold air getting through, as well as invest in a low energy heating blanket that helps keep my bed comfortable while sleeping and keeps the electricity off. I am going to try and keep this going for the winter, but I am just taking one day at a time.

What really is in your personal care products?

I selected a product I use on my hair to help it from drying out from the elements and occasional blow drying or straightening, Kerastase Nutritive Lait Nutri-Sculpt Smoothing Hair Foundation. The ingredients found in this product are:

• AQUA/WATER, CYCLOPENTASILOXANE, PROPYLENE GLYCOL, DIMETHICONOL, LAURETH 23, LAURETH 4, DIMETHICONE COPOLYOL, PHENOXYETHANOL, BEHENTRIMONIUM CHLORIDE, CARBOMER, POTATO STARCH MODIFIED, POLYQUATERNIUM 4, AMINOMETHYL PROPANOL, HYDROXYPROPYL GUAR, METHYLPARABEN, AMODIMETHICONE, QUATERNIUM 27, 2-OLEAMIDO-1,3-OCTADECANEDIOL, TRIDECETH-12, CETRIMONIUM CHLORIDE, PARFUM/FRAGRANCE

According to the website this product has a toxic score of 6 out of 10, which means that it has a moderate hazard level.

The ingredients from this product that ended up on this list that have a score of 3 or higher are:

• Fragrance: 8, Methylparaben: 8, Propylene Glycol: 4, Laureth-23: 5, Phenoxyethanol: 4, Laureth-4: 3, Cyclopentasiloxane: 2, Dimethicone: 2, Aminomethyl Propanol: 3, Cetrimonium Chloride: 3.

The other listed ingredients were low enough in toxic levels that they were not listed as concerns at this time.

I was surprised at these findings for this product, I knew it probably wasn’t the best product to buy but I did not know that the ingredients in the product were going to be as toxic as this website said. As of right now I still have a lot of the bottle left so I will continue to use it until it is gone. I could probably eliminate this product from my personal care ritual, but my hair is so fine that it gets damaged quickly just from the elements. While I am continuing to use this product I am going to look for greener more animal friendly products to substitute it. The website stated that there are 59% of styling gel/lotion that have lower concerns. I am sure I can find something that mimics what this product does.

Find out for yourself what your personal care products rate at:

http://www.cosmeticsdatabase.com

To Heat or Not to Heat?

So the ultimate argument between roommates I am finding to be whether to turn on the heat or not turn it on. I know that by not turning it on we save energy and as a result we also save money. Last year I was able to go the entire Winter turning on the heat only for a couple days in January for about a half hour a day to just get the cold air out. Of course it was a studio apartment, so it wasn't very big and the heat generated from the stove did a lot. But still I was amazed, I had never ever done anything like that before. I am not going to say it was easy, sometimes I thought I was crazy but I was determined to try.

Now from this experience you can probably tell I am all for saving money and energy, but the home I am living in this year is a lot bigger than last year and the cold air is penetrating the inside. It feels the same in October that it did in my studio in December. Now I think under these circumstances it is reasonable to turn on the heat for a 30 min interval at night and possibly in the morning, and then turn it off during the day when we are gone and when we are sleeping. I know at least one of my roommates in particular is dead set against turning on the heat at all and this is the battle I am trying to prepare for, what is better saving money or being a little more comfortable? This is what I am trying to decide.

Make Sweat-Energy at a Green Gym

by CAT LINCOLN (Subscribe to Cat Lincoln's posts)
Oct 12th 2009 @ 12:20PM

For some of us, treadmills, elliptical machines and stationary bikes are a necessary energy consuming evil. In San Francisco, damp frigid fog and raging winds make an after-work run outside daunting. The only way to make myself put in the time and run a few miles is to go to the gym, where I'm safe from the elements.

Of course, then I spend 45 minutes indulging in green guilt, mentally calculating the carbon output of the electricity that powers the treadmill and AC/heating systems. Not to mention biting my tongue so I don't berate all the people drinking water out of plastic bottles instead of BPA-free, reusable bottles. It's exhausting, and it doesn't even burn any extra calories!

I recently saw a story in the Smart 2 be Green newsletter that might hold the key to my workout serenity: the Green Gym!

Coming soon (hopefully) to a city near me, there will be gyms that have machines we can power with our own sweat equity. And perhaps even make a little extra energy to give back to the grid. Now that's motivation to do an extra lap or two around the virtual track!

Smart 2 be Green mentioned two companies that are helping gyms make the switch. ReRev is a company that retrofits existing gym equipment to make alternative, renewable energy. The Green Revolution provides machines and consulting to facilities to help them leverage the green energy power of gym rats.

Up in Portland Oregon, the Green Microgym has retrofitted cardio machines that generate enough energy to power the TVs and give back to the grid. They've managed to reduce their carbon output by 60%! Now I'm on a quest to find a people-powered workout spot in San Francisco. We're a city that banned plastic bags -- there must be at least one alternative-energy producing green gym here!

You can check out more articles on their website:

http://www.greendaily.com/

Green Business Practices

There are several companies out in the market today that are trying to stand out in sustainable business practices. You can hardly get through a television program without seeing a ad about how a company is becoming greener.

One of the largest known companies is Apple Inc. they are leaders in the electronics industry and can hardly stand to be outdone. I recently purchased some products from Apple and wanted to learn more about the company's green practices.

On the company's product website http://www.apple.com, you can discover "Apple and the Environment." It describes how they've changed their products to reduce the impact they have on the environment. The information I found most interesting was their measure of Apple's environmental footprint in each product faze from manufacturing to their facilities.

Take a look and experience for yourself the changes this revolutionary company has made at:

http://www.apple.com/environment/complete-lifecycle/

I have spent the last few days thinking about how I can change my lifestyle to potentially reduce my carbon footprint. I know that I've already made some commitments, but after some reflection I feel I need to adjust so that I can better accomplish those commitments.

I committed to trying to buy organic food when I purchase milk, eggs, meat, etc. But after going to the grocery store and actually paying attention to how much I was spending to be organic, which was double what I spent normally for half the amount of food, I realized that it is going to be nearly impossible to continue spending like that and still be able to pay for basics like rent and electricity.

If you are like me, you probably go shopping with your roommates or parents to Costco or places like that where you get large quantities of goods and it takes awhile to work through some of those. As a result the pantry that I share with my roommates is half full of things I've acquired over those shopping trips and haven't eaten because I've gotten tired of them, or I wanted to try and eat more fresh produce, etc. So my new adjusted commitment is, instead of going to the grocery store and getting different foods to eat, to eat the food I already have in the pantry and freezer before I go to the store and purchase more food. This will cut down on the number of trips to the grocery store and reduce wastefulness.

In the other categories I am doing well, the next biggest challenge is creating a ride share plan with my roommates. The hardest thing with that is we each have different schedules and want to spend enough time with our friends and family to make a trip down there worth it. I am working on it though!

More to come soon.

Ecological Footprint Discoveries

I recently took a quiz to learn what my lifestyle is in a carbon footprint. The results were a lot bigger than I expected.

Apparently if everyone in the world lived my lifestyle there would need to be 5.06 earths to sustain it. That seems crazy to me, because I recycle and compost, I keep clothes and electronics for longer than I probably should, things that I was taught to as a child and now even more as an adult with the green movement. How can it be that I need 5 earths to sustain life?

This is going to be interesting...

Some actions I am going to take to reduce my carbon footprint are going to be various from changing what I eat to changing how I get around.

1. I don’t eat much meat or animal products besides milk or cheese very often, but I am going to try and cut out eating animal products one meal a day or when I do eat animal products try and use organic.
2. When I do use my car, I am going to try and develop a ride share schedule around town or to Seattle with my roommates, so that each of us aren’t driving to the same locations in our own vehicles.
3. When I go to a coffee shop to study instead of getting a paper to-go cup and composting it later, instead getting a ceramic cup to use while I am there.
4. Increase my recycling habits and become better about composting regularly.

You can see my full results on the link below:

http://www.myfootprint.org/en/your_results/?id=646784