Forty-One - Green Contraception

Guthrie told me this post was all me. :) I have been worried about contraception for many reasons, but mostly for the hormones that it puts into a women's body for such a long time. After reading this article on the Huffington Post website, I decided to finally make a switch for me and my planet. The Huffington Post decided to determine the greenest type of contraception out there. Many would say it's abstinence, but here are some interesting facts (without getting into too much debate). From the article, according to the Guttmacher Institute, "200 million women worldwide do not have access to family planning tools, resulting in 52 million unwanted pregnancies each year. In the United States, 50 percent of all pregnancies are unplanned." This is unacceptable, though that soap box is not this blog, so back on topic.

I'll give the summary on what the article discussed:

Condoms - 437 million condoms were sold in the US in 2008. There are now vegan options available (latex condoms contain a dairy derivative). Vegan ones are made from tree derivatives. Still, condoms produce a lot of solid waste each year and many are improperly disposed of. There are some condom companies listed in the article that donate money to charity or are fair-trade and biodegradable.

The Pill - the synthetic estrogen, progestin, etc are released into our water system through urination, which impacts wildlife and our own health when that water gets circulated back through our tap. Many aquatic species are seeing problems with males being feminized due to increased hormones in the water. The pill also comes in some of the most ridiculous packaging that is disposed of monthly.

Vaginal Ring (NuvaRing) - lasts three weeks and uses much less plastic packaging than the pill, though there is still the problem of the hormones.

The Patch - very similar to the ring, lasts one week and has less packaging than the pill, but still, there are hormones involved.

IUDs - 99% effective, little waste, can be hormone-free, and last up to ten years, though less than 2% of the US population uses this method. The up front cost is substantial, but is very cost effective over time.

Also, if none of these are appealing, you can look into the Family Awareness Planning. Nothing needed, if you abstain during your most fertile days (or you use a back up like a condom or diaphragm).

If you are interested, read the article, read lots more articles, talk to your doctor, your partner, and find what works best for you.

Last week I stopped my oral contraception, Microgestin, and went to the doctor to have an IUD inserted.  That's our number 41.

Peace!

Forty - Enjoying the winter weather

Art Sled Rally Workshop - by GB

Since moving back to Minnesota, Guthrie and I (mostly me) have not been very excited about the bitter winters that we were able to remove ourselves from for two years. Though, because things just get cold and ugly, we don't go outside much. We stay in, keep the heat up, sit inside, or go out to eat a lot. Even though it gets colder here, the snow provides for great winter activities that would get us outside (allowing us to turn the heat down while we're away), get us exercising, and more excited about and energetic about coming home for a home-cooked meal. We have started off by sledding and cross-country skiing--something I haven't done since the 5th grade! It is really fun and makes January much more enjoying. We have also signed up for a skate skiing class so we can try out the other type of cross-country skiing. We will be participating in the Art Sled Rally at Powderhorn Park next Sunday with our Little. We hope to do some ice-skating as well and support our local parks.

Peace!

Thirty-Nine - Saving energy while cooking

We are now covering our pots when we boil water. This helps to keep heat from escaping and helps it boil faster (almost half the time as when uncovered). This can't always be done when cooking, since cook time is key for different foods and textures, but we will try whenever possible to cover our pots when we are cooking.

Also, we are making a commitment to use the oven light. The easy thing to do to check on our roasting or baking is to open the oven and take a peek. The Green Year says that each time the oven is opened, the temperature drops 25-50 degrees. The oven has to work that much harder to recoup that energy and it does affect your cooking. This also motivates me to keep that window a little cleaner so that I can see through when I have to check on things like fabulous blueberry muffins while they are baking.

Peace!

Plastic Recycling Update

For those in South who do not want to drive to the Eastside Co-op, Jacob's Well Church has a drop site on Sundays (you can drop and run) that will do their own deliver to the Eastside Co-op for you! Check out their posting on that here.

No Impact Week -- ending early

So, Guthrie and I were suppose to work on water yesterday. We started going through the steps and, like many of the tasks, they weren't really geared toward us or wouldn't work well with our subzero temps (I am not taking a cold shower). The water calculator was in the metric system and then it goes on to tell us not to use bottled water. Plus, I am sick of the YES! Magazine emails to get me to do Twitter chats with the "No Impact Man". This project sounded cool, but is getting too gimmicky and I don't feel like subscribing to a magazine that is delivered (not very eco), so stop asking.

Today we are suppose to give back. Well, we volunteer often. Guthrie was volunteering all week for Arc and next week we are taking our Little to an MLK celebration and making blankets for United Way. Sunday is suppose to be an eco-sabbath, and we are suppose to relax, spend time together, and stay home. We want to go XC skiing and go to yoga, so I am going to say no to saying home. Plus, it's noon on Saturday, and I am still in my robe. I think I am taking care of the relaxing.

You could chalk this up to laziness, but I would like us get to back to our usual weekly posts (starting next Sunday) because that works well for us. The idea is nice, but we've got our way that allows for a little more creativity and flexibility. I definitely suggest taking a peak at the website, but doing it on your own pace would be much more meaningful.

Peace!

No Impact Week: Energy

Let's get to it! Steps for today:

1. Assess current energy consumption habits. Walk from room to room in your home. List everything in each room that uses energy to operate. Put a star next to any item that you would ordinarily use in the remaining four days of your No Impact Experiment.


Kitchen
-toaster*
-radio*
-oven*
-refrigerator*
-overhead light*
-cabinet light*
-window lights
-lights above sink*
-rice cooker (2)
-hand mixer
-blender
-food processor
-crock-pot

Dining Room
-overhead light*
-battery charger
-calculator*
-cell phone (2)*

Living Room
-overhead light*
-computer (2)*
-ipod (2)
-ipad*
-DVD player* (remote)*
-lamp*
-record player*
-TV*
-VCR (remote)
-receiver* (remote)*
-battery alarm clock*
-point & shoot camera*
-wii + two controllers
-digital converter

Office
-overhead light*
-lamp*
-printer
-minolta SLR
-nikon SLR*
-external hard drive
-bass w/ amp
-pedometer

Bathroom
-hair dryer*
-overhead light*
-overhead fan*
-beard trimmer*

Bedroom
-overhead light*
-lamp*
-small floor fan*

Random
-stairwell light*
-hallway light*
-outdoor lights*
-lights in basement*
-washer*
-dryer*
-flashlights (4)
-camping lantern
-stud finder
-drill
-bike lights (4)
-vacuum

2. Next to each starred item, indicate if you are going to eliminate or mitigate your usage of that item.

We will make it a point to mitigate all of our electricity use. We have also pulled out more candles and will use those to help light the house in the cold, dark winter evenings. We also have dimmers on our main lights that we will use. Also always, we air dry many of our items on our basement line dryer.

3. Unplug! Turn it off. Power down. Go off the grid. For the truly adventurous, turn off your electricity completely (Ha! It's winter and I need a little artificial light since the sun sets at 4). I think we have to try this in the summer. :) The hard part will be to not cook. I love cooking in the winter. It warms the house and our bellies. Saturday, we'll put something in the crock-pot instead (oops, didn't star it) so we can keep the oven off.

We use power strips and will work hard to keep things unplugged when not in use and those power strips off. We also have CFLs in our lights/lamps.

4. Continue to reflect on your energy use (though they do tell us to blog everyday...taking up energy...hmmm...

5. Five things for which we are grateful:
   1. No snow today
   2. Sunlight (allows me to keep the lights off and the shades open!)
   3. Comedy
   4. Music
   5. Good food -- as always!

Peace!

Thirty-Eight - No Impact Week: Food

Alright -- we had to make a list of everything we ate yesterday to prepare for today. We went out on a double date to Red Stag Supper Club's cheap date night. The owner also owns the Bryant Lake Bowl (probably my favorite spot in Mpls) and Barbette (had brunch there just before Christmas). Red Stag is the first LEED Certified restaurant in MN and like it's companion restaurants, is dedicated to local, organic food and earth-friendly practices. Read more about it here.

Guthrie
2 homemade blueberry muffins
2 organic granola bars
Amy's Bowl Frozen Meal: Mexican Casserole
@Red Stag Supper Club
   cheese place
   grilled top sirloin with red pepper and onion hash
   raspberry mousse with spongecake

Laura

2 homemade blueberry muffins

1 organic granola bar

1 La Croix sparkling water

Leftovers - homemade mock duck, bok choy, & broccoli stir fry with soba noodles

@Red Stag

   cheese place

   grilled top sirloin with red pepper and onion hash

   raspberry mousse with spongecake

Steps for today:

1. Calculate our "foodprint". This was impossible, since nothing we ate really came up, and it didn't take into account that 3/4s of what we ate was organic, and about 1/4 was local (MN or WI) and 1/3 was local (Midwest) and everything else came from elsewhere in the US. 

2. Change our diet. Honestly, we did not do much to change our diet. We shopped at the co-op as per usual, got as many P6, local, and organic items as possible, the Red Stag is awesome, and we try to cook from scratch (like the muffins and stir fry) as much as possible. Lunch today was local pita and hummus from Holy Land with fresh organic veggies. 

3. Go to farmers' markets and have potlucks. This is a bit of a an Achilles heal for us--we LOVE eating out. We love eating in and cooking meals; we just LOVE good food. Though, I think we should definitely up our potlucks. This is actually spawn me to organize one for this month... (starting to plan) :)

4. Keep track of your food choices this week and reflect. 

5. Write down five things we are grateful for (I think this is a theme...)

   1. A good shovel

   2. The opportunity to volunteer

   3. Mexican food (what we're making tonight!)

   4. Public radio

   5. Public transportation (we both took it today). 

As far as tips, there are some good ones that we try to live by as well as some new ideas for us. Of course, going meatless is a great idea. Trying to have vegan days is also a great idea. I am hoping that when I graduate and we go back to a more normal cooking schedule, that we will deliberately incorporate vegan days into our flexitarian lifestyle. They have a great meat buying guide which you can download here. 

The new idea that we will use is when buying seafood, you can text FISH and the name of the fish to 30644. The reply will provide info about the sustainability of the fish from BlueOcean.org.

I tested it with something that I know is sustainable: Alaskan salmon. The response I received was:

(GREEN) high abundance due to good management; most are caught using purse seines, followed by gill nets and troll gear; cause little habitat damage and moderate levels of by catch. Cool. (I added that last part). This information is based off of the Smart Seafood Guide from Food & Water Watch. This is great when I forget to carry the Seafood Watch pocket guide with me (you can get an iphone app here as well) and forgot when my father ordered Chilean Sea Bass at an Shuang Cheng with me and I even enjoyed sharing it with him! It was very embarrassing, and we talked about it later. He now calls me up with questions, but it's nice to have this tool always with me as I go. 

Check back tomorrow for "Energy".

Peace!

No Impact Week: Transportation / Take Action

This has not been our winter for putting the car away. My placement in Saint Paul made things very difficult and this week is especially a weird one -- three dinner dates, two to the suburbs. We also have other activities either in the suburbs or on the other side of town due to me being on break and us cramming in a ton of activities. We will also be visiting a state park 1.5 hours away to go snowshoeing. We'll be using the car more than usual this week because of that, but the good news in my student teaching placement is on my bus route, so I will be busing five days a week. Guthrie will be busing (as he usually does) to the Courage Center 4-5 days per week. The car will get a rest. We are definitely not winter bikers, and don't pretend to be. Though I am excited to get rid of the snow already because I do miss exercising and commuting at the same time.

The manual has an interesting fact: American car owners spend an average of 1,000 hours annually behind the wheel. Yikes! I hate the car! Definitely would rather be someplace else--at least on public transit you can read (or knit!).

Okay, the steps for today (though, I'm not going to lie, due to the unusual week, we will be breaking some rules--though we have been carpooling with many of our dinner date couples and friends to these activities!):

1. Take stock of your habits. Make a list of everywhere you are going today and how you usually get there.

Guthrie -- took the bus today. I'm at home today. We will go out to eat later, but will take the car since Guthrie would miss the meeting time if he took the bus. Sadly, a draw back of public transit: It takes more time.

2. Throughout the day, make a list of everything you eat, where you eat, and where you purchase your food. (Getting reading for tomorrow!)

3. "Go! Bike, walk, scoot, glide, hop on the bus. Carpool." Due to the subzero temps and places we are going off of the bus grid, we will be doing more of the last two. I don't feel bad, it is what it is, and maybe next winter we'll be able to extend our eco-commute from the winter months. Though, now that it is cold, remember not to idle, and drive carefully and safely with properly inflated tires, it maximizes your mileage. Accelerate slowly and take your foot off of the accelerator as soon as you an when approaching a yellow or red light. If you check your MPG every time you fill up, you will see some changes. Also, make sure you are using your cruise control when you can on the highway--definitely saves on long trips. There's an interesting article that talks about using the cruise control almost all of the time to keep you at the speed limit, and to help you to accelerate slowly.

Want to learn more about how to get the most mileage out of your car? Check out hypermilers.com.

4. Reflect and write down five things you are thankful for:
  1. Family
  2. Friends
  3. Food
  4. Felines (can't believe I didn't think of this yesterday)
  5. Freckles -- why not? :)

The other part of today is to take action. They provide a link to the Sierra Club to to learn more about issues and to sign petitions all in one place. You can also sign up for quick and simple email action alerts through the Sierra Club.

That's all for today. Stay tuned tomorrow for Food!

Peace!

Thirty-Seven - No Impact Week: Trash

On the list for today:

1. Empty your trash bag from yesterday. Separate items into two piles-- stuff you used for more than ten minutes and stuff you used for less than ten minutes.

More than ten minutes:
Some yarn bits (non-compostable), some food bits (things the worms don't like), non-recyclable food, plastic stuff, and packaging material in Guthrie's home brew kit. 

Less than ten minutes:
dental floss
non-recyclable cardboard piece from my no-scratch fabric "kitty gate" project with glue guns bits on it.

We are supposed to evaluate how that makes us feel. Good, I guess, but I'm not too surprised. We don't usually have much trash. Composting is amazing (though we have had a horrible fruit fly problem and our worms are banished to the basement with jars of apple cider vinegar until they get that straightened out. We just started composting again after a couple month break :(

We will still keep our trash and collect it with us as we go through the day. We are not counting what we recycle, since this is to get people to look at what they are throwing away and what they can actually recycle.

2. Put together a no-trash travel kit. Done and done. We already take reusable water bottles, coffee/tea mugs/tumblers, forks, spoons, handkerchiefs, glass leftover food containers, reusable bags, etc with us. If you aren't, you should too.

3. Stop making trash :) The three Rs again: reduce, reuse, recycle. This is where our change comes into play. Guthrie and I are excited to have discovered through a friend that the Eastside Food Co-op on Central in NE has a great plastic recycling program! We will be saving all of our plastic and recycling it at the Coop when we have a big enough load. Here's the deal:

Rinse, sort by number (and some by color), and save the plastic and bring to the Co-op on Thursdays 3-7 pm or Saturdays 10-2pm. All items must have a number.

They accept #1-7!!  

#1 - need to separate clear from color

#2 - need to natural from color

No foam (#6) or prescription bottles (usually #5) - though read on for info on how to recycle these. 

I also copied some of their info from their FAQs:

-------------

Q. Why don’t you accept foam? It’s marked with a #6 PS.

A. Foam is EXPANDED Polystyrene (EPS), and it behaves differently than Polystyrene in re-processing, so we cannot accept foam. There are machines that can reprocess EPS, but none available for the post consumer market in the Twin Cities at this time.

Q. Why don’t you accept unmarked lids? I’ve heard that Aveda does? 

A. Aveda doesn't accept unmarked lids either.  What they do accept is rigid plastic caps.  Click here to learn more:http://www.aveda.com/aboutaveda/caps.tmpl

Q. Why don’t you accept prescription bottles? They are marked with a #5. I’ve heard the Humane Society takes them – why don’t you?

A. Even our recycler doesn’t know why prescription bottles are a recycling no-no, but they are. We can’t take them. We’ve heard that the Humane Society re-uses prescription bottles. The labels must be soaked off, the bottles must be thoroughly cleaned and dried, and they must be delivered to the Humane Society with the lids intact. We encourage our patrons to do that independently of this program.

-------------

Okay, back to the list. 

4. Reflect on our trash each day at the end of the day. So, for today:
Not as much, because we ate leftovers that were already cooked. The 2010 calendar Guthrie got for free last year with orange peels (the worms don't like them as much as we are not food recycling in the outdoor compost bin since it is full and we need to address getting a new one in spring, so we are only saving no food waste compostables that don't go with the worms (another post for another day).

5. Be proud of your efforts and write down five things we are grateful for:

   1. Family
   2. Food / Farmers :)
   3. Friends
   4. Kitties when they sleep through the night (done with the Fs)
   5. That Laura only has one more semester of grad school left :)

Peace!

Thirty-Six and a Half* - No Impact Week: Consumption

Guthrie and I are starting our No Impact Week (we blogged about it a while back). Each day in the manual has a new topic, with tips, and things that you need to do to greatly reduce your carbon footprint for the week. The point is to find some changes that can actually be sustained once the week is over. Luckily for us, we do many of things that the project asks for, but we are hoping to learn new ways to be green. We'll be updating you all everyday this week as we make our way through the manual (which we downloaded online). Feel free to download it, join the action, or do it another week. Just because the website told us this week does not mean you can't do it when you want to. The main benefit of completing the project on the set dates is to maybe link up with others in the community online to share tips, or even in person to share a meal -- though sadly, a group for Minneapolis has not been started.

To kick off our one-week "carbon cleanse", we start by looking at consumption. Here's a summary of the tasks they list for today:

1. Type up a list of things we need to buy this week.
2. Start collecting our trash everyday day in a reuseable bag, and hang on to it for the week. We will need to carry home any trash we create throughout the day. This will help us actually see what we are throwing away, and how much of it.
3. Don't shop. Luckily, we don't have much money so not shopping for extra items is easy for us :)

There is more info on shopping, though Guthrie and I are pretty good about this one. We try to fix things and are learning a lot about how to accomplish DIY projects around the house, use Twins Cities Free Cycle or Craigslist when we can before we buy (though we have bad luck), we like community garage sales, Salvation Army, Savers, and second-hand clothing.  We make our cleaners and some of our beauty products (though we will add to the list as we go). We honestly spend most of our money on food. The main part of today I am excited about is that I believe hanging on to our trash will be very educational for us. Also, having to hang on to it might make us create less -- I hope!

Okay, so our shopping list is a grocery list, yes, we do need to eat. The other thing we need to buy this week is something to keep Harper from scratching on our door frame/mirror at night. We have some organic no-scratch spray, but it only works well on fabric. Guthrie and I can't really sleep past 5:30, and since we have had a few days off (and we love to sleep in), we have been a little upset with the new baby. We have tried a combination of furniture and pillows, but with no luck -- he's long and agile and can get through anything. We will try again this morning, but if we can't think of something, I am going to the fabric store to buy some foam batting to set up, spray, and take down during the day.

Also, Guthrie is starting his home brewing today. We did not have a stock pot or a dial thermometer, but instead of buying, we are borrowing since those are items you don't use too often.

Here are some websites the manual listed to help with our (and your) consumer choices:

• ClimateCounts.org
• TheGreenGuide.com
• National Green Pages (instead of the yellow pages we are trying to avoid)

Stay turned for more -- tomorrow's topic is trash!

Peace!

*and a half? Guthrie and I just had a discussion as to whether or not we count each day as an actual change. We can't really count this first day. Even though participating in No Impact Week is new for us, it is not something that we are going to sustain (like carrying our trash with us). We will only count the days (like tomorrow) where we learn or incorporate something into our lives that will be a sustained change as to how we consume, reduce, reuse, recycle, and impact the world.