UNLESS

I have always loved the environment - trees, vegetables, roses, flowers of all sorts etc. I liked weeding as a kid. Toilets or weeding- that is such an easy choice for me. In that same spirit, my favorite of Dr. Seuss's books has always been The Lorax. Last night, Nate and I were reading it and I thought this passage was most appropriate. It is the Once-ler's epiphany near the end of the book.

"But now," says the Once-ler,

"Now that you're here,

the word of the Lorax seems perfectly clear.

UNLESS someone like you

cares a whole awful lot,

nothing is going to get better,

It's not.

My hope for this upcoming Earth Day is that we all start to "care a whole awful lot!" or this planet is not "going to get better. It's not."

March Comparisons

So we got our new numbers for March 2009! Still improving and reducing.

Electricity
1121 kWh - March 2008
834 kWh - March 2009

Gas
163 T - March 2008 (avg 26 F)
155 T - March 2009 (avg 30 F)

Plastic Problems

Plastic. I will agree it has some uses, but it is starting to really make a mess of our lands, dumps and the ocean (see above picture - look closely). "Moderation in everything" needs to apply here. There is a glut of information out there on plastic and its effect on people and the environment. I will be brief in my whys and more verbose in my how to change. Here is a link should you want further info on the whys. http://www.ecobags.com/Resources/Impact_of_Plastic_Bags

Plastic is made from crude oil or some petro-derivative. Yes, the foreign oil problem again. One quarter of plastic bags are made in Asia - another political problem. The big problem - plastic doesn't biodegrade. It doesn't go away. We use plastic bags for our own convenience for minutes and then we throw them out, without having a short-term end. Paper and cardboard will eventually go away, but not plastic. Bags take about 500 years to degrade and bottles thousands of years to degrade. Can you imagine the legacy we are leaving future generations? Think of all the wraps on all our food products, toys, etc that are not recyclable and are going to sit in our dumps, blow into the trees and water supplies for the next 500 to 1000 years. It is nearly impossible to get rid of plastic all together - I have tried, but we can decrease our plastic usage.

1. Shopping Bags.

Americans throw out 100 BILLION polyethylene bags per year. Less than one percent ever gets recycled. All of these will be sitting on our planet somewhere for the next 500 years.

So what to do? Get some canvas etc. reusable bags. USE them- don't leave them in the car. If you do, you can do what I do and embarrass yourself at the checkout line by going to get them, and you won't do it again. There are mesh bags for the produce department too - no need for the extras.

Reusable bags are not just for the grocery store! You can bring them to the mall, restraunts etc. too.

If you forget your bags- get paper not plastic, and skip the tissue paper. Combine as many things as you can, into the minimal amount of bags possible. Oh, and politely tell Subway no thanks next time they want to give you a plastic bag to carry your sandwich to your table.

Here is where you can buy all sorts of bags - on sale now :) http://www.ecobags.com/Our_Products

If you do happen to get a plastic bag - reuse it several times and when it is done for - recycle it.

2. Drink Bottles

Man was this person a marketing genius. Water in a bottle. What happened to cups and faucets? It was a total mind shift and a serious waste of money. I wonder how much we have all spent on water bottles . . . and could we get that back? We as Americans put 38 BILLION plastic bottles in the landfills (no not recycled - these are the ones in the dumps).

Anyway, the solution? Get a reusable water bottle - preferably not plastic. Refill it. Use it. If you forget to fill up - Starbucks, Barnes and Noble and many nice stores will fill up your water bottle. At the grocery store try to buy bigger containers of juice etc. and fill up your reusable drink bottle with juice too. Also, if the option exists buy your juice in glass. Make sure when you are done you recycle your glass bottles. And if you do get a plastic bottle remember to recycle it too.

http://www.mysigg.com/ - My favorite water bottle - they have some for kids too.

3. Packaging

As consumers we have power. Choose to buy items that are not packaged 3 or 4 times over. For example, choose a large glass jar of applesauce over the 6 -pack of plastic containers re-wrapped in plastic inside a cardboard box. It will be cheaper too! Or if you can't come up with another way for lunches, choose to buy the small containers for lunches only and use large jar for all other occasions. If you have the chance, tell companies that we don't like things constantly packaged in plastics we can only throw out. Ask them to mark their product packages with the recycling signs. The more people who change these habits will create changes in industry.

Other suggestions:

• Try to buy appliances/electronics where many of the parts are reusable, recyclable etc.
• Watch your kids toys - is there another option besides all plastic? Are they recyclable?
• And most importantly - start to be aware of how much plastic you use in your life.

Gas Mileage

Fair warning this is one of my soapboxes.

Gasoline. Such a charged word of late. So, have you ever complained about how much it costs to fill up at the tank? Well my friends, in hopes of helping you all out - may I say one thing? SLOW DOWN. We all would save on fuel budgets if we would just change our habits. We need to slowly accelerate, slowly decelerate, and drive the speed limits. Go ahead, roll your eyes, but changing these three things - depending upon how inefficiently you currently drive - can save you up to 55% of your current gas bill. Hmm - yes - start adding up those dollar signs over a year. If everyone did this, imagine the gas and air we could save - not to mention seriously cutting our reliance on OPEC and all the issues that go with it. http://www.pickensplan.com/oilimports/

Our two cars show us our current gas consumption. The averages plummet if we start up quickly and slam on the breaks. This also happens if we drive over 60 mpg. At current prices (1.93 per gallon), every 5 miles you drive over 60 you are paying another .24 cents/gallon at the pump. Yes, I know people don't like it on the highway. They act like anyone driving slowly is an idiot. Well, perhaps they just don't know and you can laugh back at them, knowing you are saving gas, money, and the planet all at the same time. :)

Other tips to save gas.

1. Turn off the radio instead of turning the volume down.
2. Take out extra out of your car if you are not using it. Hauling more costs more. Why pay more to use your car as a moveable storage or garbage facility?
3. Don't use the heat if you don't necessary.
4. Don't use the air unless you necessary.
5. Don't idle if you don't have to - turn it off it is going to be longer than 35-45 seconds.
6. If you see your mpg constantly creeping up - use your cruise control on highways. - You can get better mpg if you coast down hils and slowly go up hills, but it takes time to learn.
7. Use overdrive gears -(I still don't know how to do this.)
8. Keep your tires inflated.
9. Keep your car maintained
10. Combine your errands.
11. Ride a bike instead!

You can put a mpg consumption computer in your car http://www.amazon.com/ScanGauge-Compact-Multifunction-Computer-Customizable/dp/B000AAMY86?ie=UTF8&s=automotive&qid=1204690333&sr=1-1

or get a gadget that yells at you when you do it wrong - http://www.fuelmiser.com/ or http://www.digitalfuelmizer.com/

As a disclaimer - please don't try the whole additives thing. They are doing bad things to cars etc.

February Comparisons

So, I just got our February numbers. Doing these posts on the blog, I am really excited to see the energy bill each month (via email! - save the trees). This month we did do better on both counts!


Electricty
874 kWh - February 2009
1,368 kWh - February 2008

Gas
189 Therms - February 2009 ( 20 F)
217 Therms - February 2008 ( 15 F)

It has been a bit warmer this February, so that padded our numbers a bit over all.

As far as changes, our focus for the month of February was decreasing our gas consumption. What did we do? We fixed our two gas leaks on Feb 10th. Supposedly, these small leaks have been around since the home was built. (We didn't know about them until then.) So we will probably see a larger difference in the gas numbers the rest of this year. We also changed out the shower head in the master bathroom. Additionally, I have been continuing sealing all those exterior outlets. Perhaps by the end of the month I will finally be done! Every change is one step closer to our goal. From the numbers, you can see this is working, and it can work for you too!