this blog has moved

please read this blog at:

http://green.roberthouser.com

Best small green purchase of 2008 – 5 stars

Water – not the flat stuff, but sparkling, soda, fizzy, bubbly water. We drink a lot of it at my house, so last year I researched greener options to stop bringing all those plastic bottles into the house. I wrote about my find last summer and want to give an update. The solution was a home sparkling water maker from SodaStream. It’s a small machine that holds a canister of CO2 – you fill their specially designed bottles up with tap water, pump the handle a few times – instant sparkling water. Tastes great. But is it really the same as … yes, it is, it’s carbonated water.

Last week I counted how much sparkling water we drank in my household – 18 liters. That’s a lot of bottles saved, true, but it’s also a lot of money in my pocket, and no lugging cases of sparkling water in the house.

So what’s the catch? Not much – you buy this machine ($80-225 depending on the model), about the size of a coffee maker. It comes with two CO2 cartridges – each one seems to last about a month in my house. When we have two empty cartridges, you log onto the website, order two replacements ($30 total). Then you leave your empties on your doorstep and a few days later, they’ve dropped off two full ones. The part I like the best is that the cartridges are re-filled and reused. About the only thing that gets thrown out is small protective plastic cap, almost nothing in the landfill, nothing that needs to be recycled.

Soda drinker? The company also has mixes to make your own soda. Personally I used to drink a lot of Snapple – with the sparkling water always available, I find I drink it instead – even less bottles, less money, and a few less calories to boot.

http://www.sodastreamusa.com

Now available at Williams Sonoma too – check out their website – 44 people have reviewed the gadget. The average of all reviews is 5 stars out of 5 – I’d have to agree!

Best green purchase of 2008

Looking back on the last year, I wanted to single out the most green cost saving purchase I made in 2008. Without question it would have to be my front loading washing machine. Top loading machines use a crazy amount of water and energy. I’ve mentioned the benefits to front loading washers in this column in the past and after a year using it, here are some more numbers to convince you.

• Purchase price $1000
• PGE/EBMUD combined rebate $200 *
• Manufacturer rebate $150
• Sold my old one on craigslist.com $100

• Out of pocket $550

Now the savings – I’ve done a lot of improvements over the past year which have collectively reduced my water, gas and electric totals, but based on timing of these changes, I’ve estimated the savings listed below as a direct result of the new washing machine. The water savings is obvious, these washers, like new dishwashers, use much less water, about 40-60% less! Electricity savings are significant too – 30-80% less. But how do you save gas? Two ways, heating 40 gallons of water for a top loader versus 15 gallons of water for a front loader puts a lot less energy into your hot water heater. And, here’s the best part – front loaders spin fast, real fast. That means your clothes are much more dry when then come out – my dryer cycles are 20 minutes shorter now – 35% less energy used.

• Water savings – $4/month savings
• Electricity savings – $12/month savings
• Gas savings – $12/month savings

Over $300/year in savings – less than two years and I’ve paid for the washer. I’ll be making a profit on this washing machine by the end of the summer!

It’s pretty likely that your washing machine will die in the next 10 years, save yourself money now, and change it out. If you also change out an old refrigerator and a bunch of CFL’s, we’ll all be doing our part to reduce CO2 emissions – and all this savings uses technology that’s been around for years.

* EBMUD rebate information: http://www.ebmud.com/drought/rebates.html

Cleaning cars vs. washing hands

Family was coming in this weekend, it was Saturday and I had ten minutes and two dirty cars. My son and I each grabbed an old towel; he went inside with some green window cleaner. I took the hose with the sprayer in one hand, and the towel in the other. I’d spray for a second on a section, then wipe everything down with the towel, then quick rinse – just the water. Two minutes and very little water later, the car looked no different than if I had spent fifteen minutes soaping everything down.

When you wash a car in the sun with soap, you spray it down, soap it up, then the soap dries on the car before you get to the hose to rinse, so you need to wipe that area again – a lot of time and a lot of water. From now on, I’m just using water and a towel. I’m not going to eat off the hood – what’s the soap really doing anyway? Adding a lot of chemical run-off to the storm drain. Even if you use biodegradable soap, you should have the run-off go into your own yard.

But, save yourself all that – try this method, at least once. Hose in one hand towel in the other – fast and clean.

So what does all this have to do with washing hands? After looking at the clean car, I was thinking, some guys are going to say, ‘you can’t get a car clean without using soap.’ I then thought about men’s restrooms, how many of these guys actually use soap when they leave there? Trust me, much fewer than you want to know.

Skip the soap on the car, but go ahead and use it in the bathroom.

Five minutes to balance your carbon

OK, this one is easy – a fast, low cost way to balance your home’s carbon footprint: PG&E’s ClimateSmart Program – sign up now.

Here’s the deal – all the gas and electricity you use in your home causes a certain amount of greenhouse gases – the carbon footprint for your home.  These greenhouse gases are pollutants that serve as a blanket – warming the Earth’s surface.

PG&E has created a program that invests in programs that will offset the greenhouse gas emissions caused by the energy we use in our homes and businesses.  The program, independently verified by the nonprofit California Climate Action Registry, fuels projects like forest conservation and methane capture.  Getting involved with ClimateSmart is kind of like buying carbon offsets, which I’ve written about here and still support, but even easier.  All you do is sign up once online.  

Each billing cycle, PG&E will add a slight charge based on your energy use.  On my bill, this added less than $5 each month.  However, you’re only paying for what you use, when you use it.  You’ll barely notice the difference, while balancing out your carbon footprint over time.  And, the amount you pay in the Climate Smart program is tax deductible.

I still like the idea of purchasing carbon offsets for your car, or airline flights, but this one for your home is too easy not to do.  Go online now, and just sign up.

http://pge.com/climatesmart – all you need is your name, email address, phone number and your PGE account number

Rats

Rats, not often talked about, but they’re everywhere.  Here’s the trouble – many people feel they only have one choice in dealing with these pests – Rat Poison.  Problem is Rat Poison doesn’t work instantly – no dramatic Shakespearean moment – rat takes one bite, then ahhhh, and falls dead.  No, instead the rat eats the bait, and then slowly gets weaker – becoming potential prey for cats, owls, etc.  Or, they go off somewhere to die – maybe in your attic, maybe your neighbors’, maybe your vegetable garden, or someone’s compost pile.  Problem is, besides smelling nasty, the dead rat is now full of poison, and who knows how much it will have spread around your neighborhood before it’s demise – lots of collateral damage.  So, while rat poison may work, it’s potentially quite hazardous in a community setting – you don’t want your old pest to poison your neighbors tomatoes, especially right before they feed them to their new baby.

But what can you do?  First off, try to get rid of their source of food – just tonight I found a ton of rat droppings in a bucket of bird seed I had set inside a bench, thinking their was no way in.  Lock up birdseed, or any other food source you leave outside, including Fido’s or Fifi’s un-eaten dinner.

Next step, try to get rid of any invitations for rats to move in.  Put metal screening over all access points to attics or crawl spaces.  And, here’s a double green suggestion that I learned from the groundskeeper at the local School District:  All that ivy blanketing huge areas as ground cover – a haven for rats to live in.  No one walks in there, it’s safe and secluded, plenty of water since it needs to be watered so much.  Cut your rat population, and decrease your water use by ripping out that ivy ground cover and planting some Bay Friendly grasses!

Still have a problem:
    •    Traps – there is always the traditional mouse trap – use peanut butter, and put the trap in a paper bag, so it’s easily disposed of when the vacancy sign has been removed.
    •    The rat zapper – apparently 4 AA batteries can deliver a lethal electric shock, and the rat is contained for handy disposal.
    •    Get a dog – apparently some breeds are excellent rat control devises.
    •    There are even natural baits that are toxic to rats – that won’t cause any secondary poisoning.
    •    Call in a professional, but find one that uses green methods.

More info:
http://www.greenlivingtips.com/articles/129/1/Earth-friendly-rodent-control.html
http://www.ratzapper.com/

Lights Off Across the Globe – EarthHour 2009

What began in 2007 in Sydney in cooperation with the World Wildlife Fund, EarthHour has grown to be a huge international statement in the fight against global warming.  Coming up on Saturday, March 28th, EarthHour participants around the globe will turn off lights and unnecessary electricity for an hour beginning at 8:30pm.  How can you be play a part? – simple, shut off your lights.  One person, what kind of effect will it have?  That’s exactly the thought behind EarthHour – a critical mass of individuals around the globe making a huge statement.  

On March 27, 2007 2.2 million people in Sydney shut off their lights – plunging the city into darkness for an hour.  Last year the same idea was repeated around the globe – 400 cities in 35 countries went dark.  Restaurants went dark, the string of lights on the Bay Bridge, the Ferry Building, The TransAmerica building, Ghirardelli – all were shut off, lights on the Coliseum in Rome – dark.  Chicago, Manilla, New York, Atlanta, Toronto, Fiji, Kazakhstan – all shut off lights.  Even Google turned it’s home page black for the hour.

This year participation around the globe is expected to be even greater with cities in 75 countries already agreeing to take part.  Participation is easy – grab a candle, a book, a board game.  Get your kids involved – my son made us keep everything dark last year starting at dinner time – it was like a winter night with no electricity. 

For more information including tips on how to get kids involved, visit:

http://www.earthhourus.org/main.php

It’s a floor cleaner and a dessert topping

 

Another use for toothpaste: OK, don’t mind the Saturday Night Live reference from the 70s, but you must learn about this other use for toothpaste.  Silver Polish.  Yes, I was skeptical at first also – how is toothpaste going to remove tarnish from silver?  But it’s certainly easy enough to try.  I’ve always wondered what was in silver polish, and do I really want to eat off of forks that were just smeared with the stuff?  Here’s a green cleaner that has numerous benefits:

1. You already have it around
2. It smells good
3. Your kids will want to polish the silverware because it doesn’t seem like a chore when your spreading toothpaste on a candlestick.
4. It doesn’t leave that black stuff all over your fingers when you’re done.  
5. Throw the rags in the wash – they just have toothpaste on them.

I’ve found that it works best if you wet a rag first – slightly damp.  A small squirt of toothpaste and a bit of elbow grease, like you would with normal silver polish.  Then rinse and buff.  Your silver will be clean, shiny and minty fresh.  However, please note, do not use on just any metal, toothpaste may harm things that aren’t silver.

Try this:  You are getting ready to go out, and you notice your silver bracelet looks pretty tarnished.  One squirt of toothpaste on your hand, rub it around for a few seconds, then under the water – shiny as new.  

worms, kids and compost

This Fall the students in our local elementary school began separating their lunch waste – using the new green bins. On one of those early October days, the students had a lunchtime talk about what goes in each bin – green waste, recycling and garbage – and where the contents from each bin end up. We talked about landfills, recycling plants and compost heaps. Did you know that every day enough trash from our small city goes into the landfill to match the size of a Volkswagen bus – every day. In a year, that would be enough to fill up the school playground. So these kids are learning how to divert their trash from the landfill – using recycling, and green bin composting.

To demonstrate how the green bin waste turns into compost, the kids collected some of their lunch scraps and put them into a plastic file box. The box contained numerous banana peels, orange peels, sandwich bits, a few apples cores, some paper napkins and paper plates, and one untouched apple. To all this we added a small amount of old, finished compost and five worms.

Throughout the Fall, the box was taped up and hung on the fence near the lunch tables for the kids to watch throughout the semester. Each week the level of stuff inside the box dropped, and last month we opened the box!

The paper plates were gone.  The fruit peels – gone.  The napkins – gone.   Only the untouched apple remained, though much mushier. The worms had multiplied – we counted over 20, and the contents had become rich compost soil. And no smell – confirmed in a comparison with a fourth grade sneaker.

The finished compost was sprinkled in the school’s garden, fertilizing the growing vegetables – all in all a wonderful hands on learning experience. Now they see what happens to all that stuff they put in that big green bin, and why.

Try it with your kids – take some food scraps, paper napkins, and some dirt from your yard (not potting soil) – tape it up in a plastic bin, shake it every few weeks for a few seconds, and then open it in the summer – and your kids will see why we’re using these green bins.

best thing you can do for your garden?

The answer will save you time, save you money, save you water, and make your plants healthier.  Mulch!  Comes in all kinds of flavors – compost, wood chips, bark, pine needles, grass clippings, even crushed rock.

With water as sparse as it is, mulch is a perfect way to maximize your irrigating – providing a blanket above the soil to keep things moist.  Still not convinced?  Here’s a few more reasons:

Mulch in your garden will:

1. reduce erosion – keeping water sources clean.  During construction mulch will keep your soil where it’s supposed to be, and less mud tracked through the site.
2. reduce weeds – making maintenance easier.  Weeds that do grow through will pull out easier.
3. make it look better – maintaining a consistent color will clean up the appearance of your garden.
4. fertilize your plants as the organic matter breaks down.

Now you’re convinced, what to do first?  

If you are simply adding mulch to an already established garden bed, be sure to weed first, then add mulch two to four inches thick – keeping it away from the bases of trees.  If you have a new area that you are replanting, or perhaps removing some grass around some garden beds – a great plan would be to sheet mulch.  This involves cutting everything down first, and then laying down an organic weed barrier – cardboard or a thick layer of newspaper.  On top of this, layer on your mulch.  Remember this can be anything from bark chips you order by the yard or buy by the bag, pine needles you rake up, or here’s my favorite option – green waste mulch.  There are always tree companies working in town – ask one to drop off their tree chippings.  This benefits them too by not having to haul away this green matter.  

Everything you need to know - click on mulch on the left column.