Archive for July, 2009
Recycle: Glass vs Plastic
Question. Is it better to buy a smaller glass container or a larger plastic container?
Answer? I don’t bloody know! I can’t decide. Help!
We buy Bertolli olive oil (extra virgin, fruity taste) and we go through it quite quickly. The Elves like a good EVOO, yes we do. Bertolli sells it in either a 1 litre glass bottle, or a 2 litre plastic bottle. So far we’ve been buying the glass one, but which one is more environmentally friendly?
We are currently buying the 1 litre glass bottle of Bertolli EVOO.
Glass is better for the environment, I think – it’s made of sand, silica and limestone and while it doesn’t biodegrade easily, it can be recycled over and over again, forever. I’ve also seen pieces of glass at the beach, all smooth and no longer resembling whatever they originally were. It takes way less energy to produce (especially if it’s recycled) and if it gets dumped, you know it’s not going to leach toxins or hurt an animal (unless it’s broken and they get cut). The eco-downside is that because it’s heavier, it takes more energy to ship, and it can break more easily during shipping, causing greater waste. Apparently it takes more energy to recycle than plastic too, but I think maybe that’s not considering fancy glass recycling plants like the Visy plant in Melbourne.
Plastic is made from petrochemicals and doesn’t biodegrade. It’s made of all kinds of nasty toxic stuff and hangs around killing animals for ages. Production almost always includes nurdles as a by-product, and let’s not even talk about the floating plastic continent of doom. It’s lighter and more durable and consumes less energy when shipping though.
I’m inclined to go for glass, but if we buy glass, it comes in a smaller package, which means more packaging to get the same amount of oil. I think they sell it in a 5 litre tin too, but our tiny house is not made for storing significant bulk food purchases, as much as I like the idea, so that won’t work for us.
Which one should we buy?
Spotlight: Dilbert’s Take on Paper Cups
I like the Dilbert comic strip. It reminds me a little of my office, which reminds me of when I first found out I’d be working in an office (as opposed to teaching in a shitty classroom). I felt all sophisticated. Ha. Oh, how we grow. And oh, how our cynicism grows. Hmm. Nah, I don’t hate it that much really.
Anyway, I actually subscribe to the daily Dilbert comic strip, but for a while there I wasn’t checking my reader, so I missed them. One of my colleagues gets the daily strip emailed to her every morning by her sister (who in turn gets them from someone else), and when I expressed my liking for Dilbert, she started sending them on to me. I’ve since begun accessing my feed reader again, but haven’t had the heart to tell her to stop, so I get my daily dose of Dilbert twice. I like how sometimes the strips build on each other. The following two came through this week, and I they got me thinking.
The first strip makes me think of the way a lot of people commonly view eco-friendly items that replace the things they’re used to. The prevailing opinion seems to be that they’re not as good as the original version (squirrel, anyone?). Is this true? In my opinion, not usually. I think that often the producers of eco-friendly goods go to considerable lengths to ensure the newer version at least meets and often outperforms the original. Sometimes it’s something else (original) that is the problem. For example, until we got new printers at work a couple of weeks ago, we weren’t able to use recycled printer paper as it caused paper jams up the wazoo. The new printers are fine with it… which I think means it was really the old, out-of-date printers that were not so good. No-one has complained about the paper coffee cups though, but I guess I hardly ever see anyone using them.
Which brings me to the second strip. Just like Dilbert, we actually did introduce paper cups in our offices Australia-wide this year, to replace styrofoam and plastic cups. They’re recyclable and made from recycled paper. But, just as Dilbert says, it’s not so clear how that helps the planet. See, no-one really used the disposable cups in my office anyway (not sure about other offices around Australia though). Everyone already used reusable mugs, which is really awesome cos I’m reading this book called true green @ work that I got from the library and it says that over the life of a mug (about 3000 uses), you make 30 times less solid waste than if you use a cardboard cup. (Whoa, talk about a run-on sentence. Yes, I edit for a living.) You also create 60 times less air pollution. Considering that as of the time of publishing (2007), Australians were using around 400 million disposable cups per year, think of all the eco-savings. And of course, paper cups are better than plastic and styrofoam, so if you thought those stats were bad, just imagine…
Of course, you could always make like No Impact Man and use a jar instead. I do wonder how that would go down in the corporate culture though. I think my boss might think I’m insane. Then again, I get the impression that my new boss may have tree-hugger hippy potential (in an affluent boss-y way), so you never know. (I’m already reusing glass juice bottles as my water bottles, but I think it’s more socially acceptable to drink from a bottle).
Regardless, I think the introducing-recycled-and-recyclable-paper-cups-initiative is a good idea, even if it is just a drop in the bucket and not as effective as getting rid of disposable cups entirely. It does raise visibility… but how much is it really helping the planet?
Reduce: Winter Heating
Ok, onward to this getting-back-in-the-swing-of-things thing.
Today I want to talk about staying warm in winter… because it’s winter here and I’m bloody cold! Apparently it’s going to get down to 3°C (37.5°F) in the next few days, there is sleet falling already – this is unheard of in Brisbane! What’s an eco-lesbo to do?
We don’t have central heating here in Queensland, and I really don’t like using the reverse cycle air conditioner to heat the house. It’s inefficient. I purposely didn’t tell Mr Teeny-bop how to use it when we first moved in here, because it’s not good for the environment and also because we were dead broke a couple of years ago and couldn’t afford the electricity bill spike that would have ensued, had we used it. These days we’re just broke to the point of being severely injured (as opposed to dead broke… that was a pun, get it? no?), so I still don’t really want to use it, plus, you know the eco thing. Unfortunately Mr Teeny-bop is old enough to figure out things for himself these days, so we’ve had to have a chat recently about not using the air conditioner to heat (or cool) unless we REALLY need to (which in my opinion is never, in our climate).
Beanie, favourite ugly cardigan, blanket and Diva Princess the kitty hot water bottle. I'm toasty warm!
So anyway, here’s a list of the top ten things the Elv family do instead (and what I recommend you all try) to keep warm.
1. Wear more clothing. Layers are my friend. I especially like my old woolen cardigan that Grandma gave me. It used to be hers from years and years ago and it’s my favourite jumper ever even if it is a weird beige/camel/sand/mustard colour. (Some uncharitable people call it baby-poo brown, but they’re just jealous.) It fits perfectly and I’m very sad it’s now getting thin at the left elbow. Note to self: figure out how to make one just like it. If anyone can help with that, it would be much appreciated.
2. Wear beanies. Keeping your head warm is important. Home-made beanies are especially good because they fit your head just right, which keeps the heat in even better. Plus, they’re fair trade and you know where they came from. Yankee Elv makes some awesome ones with tassles in the corners. They looks better than they sound – I’ll add a picture when I can find one.
3. Keep your feet warm. I’m a big fan of keeping your extremities warm, and for me this definitely means feet. Even in summer I can have cold feet. No, there’s nothing wrong with my circulation. I wear thongs or shoes around the place so my feet don’t get cold on the tiles or polished floor. My favourite thing to put on my feet is my heatie wheatie feeties (they’re heat wheat pack slippers – I seriously don’t know how I lived without them). I wear them watching tv, on the computer, when working from home, in bed…
4. Invest in heat wheat packs. It’s amazing how much a little pack, warmed up in the microwave once or twice an hour for two minutes, can keep you toasty. You can get all different sizes and shapes. They are also great to take to bed, to get you warm when you first get in. There’s nothing worse than getting into a cold bed with cold sheets in winter.
5. Put flannelette sheets on your bed. Add lots of blankets too. I really like to be warm when I’m sleeping. I will actually wake up and be unable to get back to sleep if I’m too cold when sleeping, so adding an extra blanket can really make a difference.
6. Have a lounge room blanket. We have a couple of older quilts that live on the backs of our lounge chairs when they’re not in use, and they make sitting down together of an evening much more comfortable.
7. Combine body heat. Don’t sit on separate couches. Sit together and share the warmth. Let the dog cuddle up with you. Cats have a higher body temperature than humans, and they do love to snuggle. Why not have a mutually beneficial cuddle? I worked from home today and spent the last hour with the cat on my lap while I typed. Very cosy.
8. Use the heat of the sun. In the morning, I get up and open all the windows on the eastern(ish) side of the house, to get the sun in. I leave the insulating blinds on the other side of the house closed up. Then as the sun starts to move to the west, I open other windows to get the warmth in, and remember to shut everything up just as it starts to cool off, so I don’t lose that heat. I also love to sit in the hammock-swing on the sunny back verandah around midday on the weekend.
9. Warm up from the inside. Have a hot milo or a cup of tea. Some people like hot cereal in the morning (I don’t, but you know). Eat hot food. Bake more too (you’ve got to eat anyway, right?) – the oven will help warm up the house.
10. Shut doors to rooms you’re not using, to keep the heat in the main areas of the house. I’m not very good at this last one, but when I do remember, it definitely makes a difference.
What else can you do to stay warm in winter? I’m going to need all the advice I can get to make it through this cold snap…
For those of you in the northern hemisphere looking for ways to keep cool, check out my Reduce: Summer Cooling Costs post from the last southern summer.
Aussie ELV gets her Arnie on
I would like to make a confession. I forgot my line. It was some line out of a Terminator film. ‘Hasta la vista, baby’? Nope, not that one. Oh yeah, that’s right – it was ‘I’ll be back.’
Arnie says: 'I'll be back.' Sorry I forgot.
Sorry I forgot that. I did just disappear of the face of this blog without so much as a by-your-leave. I apologise. Look, I’ll say it now:
I’ll be back.
Too little, too late huh? Well, how about we start over, with a clean slate? That’s kinda how I’m going to be approaching this blog.
You see, I took an unexpected break because it was break from the blog or break from work, and this blog doesn’t pay me. I was so keen when I started blogging here. This blog was going to be a success, it was going to have a wide-audience, and there would be comments and discussion. It would give me the chance to start writing again, about stuff I was interested in, instead of just reviewing other people’s work (which is what I do for a living). I was going to foster this blogging ecstasy by posting everyday! To help motivate myself, I made categories and set up a schedule. I was going to be in blogging heaven! It was going to be sweet!!
Except it wasn’t. What happened instead was that I burned out. I felt stifled by the categories. Having to write a Spotlight every week was so much work. I found myself looking for easy things to write about, instead of stuff that I was really interested in. The Weekly Round-ups were a repeat of what other sites are already doing, took ages. I doubted myself. I spent more time struggling to write than I did trying new things I could write about, which meant I had nothing to write about, so I spent ages trying to think of something. Can you say Catch 22? Sometimes I struggled to fit what I wanted to write about into the three Rs, so I’d just write about boring stuff. It was hard to find pictures to include, and I had to include them, cos in my mind blogs without pictures are boring. The only thing I liked was Friday Feast, and that’s only because I already had those recipes typed up so it meant a day off. I felt like I was preaching rather than sharing or questioning. My writing felt flat. Discussion didn’t really happen the way I expected it to. I became obsessed with my blog stats. I discovered that roughly the same number of people turned up at the blog whether I wrote that day or not, regardless of what my topic was. More people got to this blog using the terms 90s cartoon and stuffed capsicum than any kind of eco anything. I’m not even going to go into some of the weird search terms that have lead people here. Clearly some people are kooky. My attempts to boost readership only worked temporarily for the particular post I linked to, then my readership would drop sharply again. I only had two people RSS-ing. I felt like a blog-tastic failure.
Basically, it all got too much. Too much pressure, which I put on myself. I’m not blaming anyone else for this. I think I just approached this blog the wrong way. I mean, when you start thinking in terms of taking a day off from something that is supposed to be fun, then you realise you lost the joy somewhere. Eco Lesbo Vego was never supposed to be a chore. I tried slowing down but it didn’t work, so I just had to go cold turkey. Absolute. Complete. Stop.
Lately though, I’ve been missing it (what ‘it’ was supposed to be), so I wanna give Eco Lesbo Vego another try. This time though, things will be a bit different.
- No schedule – I’ll write what I want, when I want
- Categories are ok, but they’ll fit what I write, as opposed to me trying to fit my writing into them
- New categories might pop up to fit new stuff I’m writing about
- No pressure to write every single day
- Write to make myself happy, about topics that interest me
- Write when I have time
- No such thing as a day off – blogging will no longer be a chore!
- Only check my blog stats once a day at maximum (preferrably less often – and yes, this should indicate how obsessed I was getting)
- Weekly Round-up will be less structured, less news obsessed, and might disappear altogether… we’ll see
- Maybe the blog will end up more lesbo and vego, instead of mostly eco – but it will all still be related to the environment. But don’t blame me if the odd picture of Marlee Matlin, Lucy Lawless or Jennifer Beals recycling or digging in their garden occasionally appears…
- Less obsession with building readership
- More time doing new stuff, rather than writing about it.
So that’s my new deal with myself. I guess we’ll see how it works out.
P.S. Thanks to everyone who did check in on the blog regularly, comment and was generally supportive. Without you guys, I would have burned out way earlier. I really appreciate your support and hope you’ll give this gig another chance!
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