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.