Eye Opener: Environmental Working Group

For this week's Eye Opener we were asked to visit http://www.ewg.org/skindeep/ to find out the health concerns of a beauty product that we use.  I decided to check out my face wash, Neutrogena Oil-Free Acne Wash Foaming Scrub, Pink Grapefruit, and was pretty surprised to find out that it is rated very hazardous.  On a scale of 0-10 this face wash was rated an 8.  The company, Neutrogena, does not sign the campaign for healthy cosmetics, and according to PETA they conduct animal testing.  After finding this out I am very curious to find out what face washes are not this hazardous to the environment.

Read 'n' Seed #4

This week I read chapters 7-9 of Do One Thing Green: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, pages 91-139.

picture from
http://rodinspoet.
wordpress.com/

Chapter seven, "Lighting", talked a lot about using Energy Star-approved CFL or LED bulbs and fixtures instead of incandescent lightbulbs.  CFLs are 75% more efficient and last ten times longer than incandescent bulbs, and LEDs are three times more efficient than CFLs, and they last up to ten times longer than CFLs, and one hundred times longer than regular bulbs (p.94).  Using these types of bulbs will save you a lot of money because they last longer and don't use as much energy.  When reading this chapter I was thinking that I needed to change my lightbulbs RIGHT NOW, but the truth is I'm only going to live in my house until June so buying new lightbulbs isn't really the smarter thing for me to do right now.  When I do move somewhere where I will be living for a long period of time it will be beneficial to my wallet to spend a little more money on these types of bulbs at first so that I don't have to buy new ones as often and my energy bills will be lower.

Chapter 8 is titled, "Saving Water", which basically came down to taking a shorter shower.  The chapter was short and sweet and I hated it.  The "Choose it's" included: taking a shower instead of a bath (done), keep showers to five minutes or less (not happening, especially in the winter, I'm soaking up every minute in the nice warm shower), use a low-flow shower head (I like my showers to have so much pressure they almost hurt), turn off the water when you soap yourself and shampoo (so I can freeze between rinses?  not happening), and turn down your hot water heater thermostat to 120 degrees (I think I can live with this one).  Okay, taking shorter showers is really good for the environment, I get it.  We are running out of clean water, but there are other ways that we can save water that are described in this chapter that I will follow through on.  The first is watering your lawn and garden in the early morning and late evening, this way you won't have to use as much water because the sun won't be evaporating the water right away.  The other thing you can do is buy a water-sensible toilet.  This isn't practical for me to do right now because I live in a rental house but I could mention it to my landlord.  I can also be sure to put these in my home when I buy one some day.

Chapter 9, "Simple Green Housekeeping", is something that my old roommate was really into but I never really knew what she was doing or why.  The chapter explains that by using a small list of simple products, that you might already have around the house, and mixing them together different ways, you can make your own cleaning supplies.  The list includes things such a baking soda and lemon juice.  By  not using most of the cleaners your probably buy in the stores, which contain toxic chemicals, you will be improving the air in your house, which in turn will improve the health of those living there.  Non-green, conventional ingredients include VOCs, which evaporate from products, filling your indoor air with fumes, these VOCs have been shown to cause skin, eye, nose, throat, and lung irritation; asthma attacks; headache; and dizziness (p. 120).  Starting on page 123 of the book there are recipes for making cleaning products, I am very interested in starting to make these things, I always get a headache when I use cleaning supplies so I think that using these things will help a lot.  This chapter also talks about things in your house, such as your mattress, paint or wood floors, and what to do to make sure they are best for the air in your home.


Chapter One: Free yourself from the bottled water habit (p. 3).
Chapter Two: Chose organic and locally grown produce (p.16).
Chapter Three: Eat small fry like sardines, rather than big hunks, like bluefin tuna (p.35).
Chapter Four: Skip red meat at least one day a week (p.56).
Chapter Five: Never microwave food in plastics. Use tempered glass or ceramic instead (p.65).
Chapter Six: Wash most of your laundry in cold water (p.81).
Chapter Seven: Switch to a green lightbulb (p. 92).
Chapter Eight: Take a shorter shower (p. 109).
Chapter Nine: As you use them up, replace conventional cleaning products with green formulas (p. 117).

Read 'n' Seed #3

This week I read chapters 4-6 of Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, pages 54-89.

This week's reading started with chapter four, "Meat, Dairy, Poultry, and Eggs".  This chapter started off by talking about the Greenhouse Gas emissions that are correlated with eating meat.  Livestock production is responsible for 18% of GHG emissions worldwide, and on average, red meat and dairy is around 150% more GHG-intensive than chicken or fish (p.57).  After last week's Eye Opener I'm kind of over thinking about the way my meat consumption effects the environment, but I did try out the calculator that the book suggested to see what my footprint is with what I eat, and I found the frequently asked questions part of this website was pretty informative.  Something I really liked about this chapter was the "Chose it or Lose it" section.  It gave me this list, which I put on a piece of paper in my wallet so I can remember what to look for when I'm at the grocery store, each thing is linked to the website so you can look at what each name means:
-American Grassfed Association
-Animal Welfare Approved
-Certified Humane
-Demeter
-Food Alliance Certified

Chapter five, "Food Storage and Cookware", talked a lot about safe containers for storage and microwaving.  From this chapter I got that it is okay to store foods in plastic containers, but never put them in the microwave.  You never should put plastic in a microwave because even "microwave safe" containers can release BPA.  BPA is not good for our health, and plastics are not good for the environment, so going with glass containers is always going to be the better decision, since they don't release toxic chemicals and they are infinitely recyclable.  I already use glass containers for leftovers and food storage around the house, but I am more than guilty of putting everything I pack in my lunch in little plastic baggies.  To change this I am going to get reusable bags to pack in my lunchbox.

http://www.energystar.gov/

Chapter six, "Appliances", "one green thing" was to wash most of your laundry in cold water.  Cold water uses about 90% less energy than hot, according to the U.S. Department of Energy.  If every household in the United States washed four out of five loads in cold water instead of hot, we'd prevent almost 50 million tons of carbon emissions a year - which would have the same effect as taking 10 million cars off the road (p.81).  I do this already, but I use my dryer for everything except jeans.  I could start hanging most things, using the dryer is definitely just me being lazy.  When I have my own house and need to think about the appliances in my house and stuff I hope to be able to afford Energy Star appliances.  "In 2007 alone, by purchasing Energy Star products and otherwise using energy efficiently, Americans saved more than $16 billion on their utility bills while reducing greenhouse gas emissions equal to those from 27 million vehicles" (p.88).  In some states you can get tax breaks for using Energy Star appliances, too look up which states participate visit energy.gov/savings (p.89).

I also noticed that at the beginning of every chapter there is a "Do One Green Thing" tip.  I sort of touched on them last week, and in each chapter description, but I thought it'd be nice if you could see them in a list, which I will add on at the end of each Read 'n' Seed post.

Chapter One: Free yourself from the bottled water habit (p. 3).

Chapter Two: Chose organic and locally grown produce (p.16).

Chapter Three: Eat small fry like sardines, rather than big hunks, like bluefin tuna (p.35).

Chapter Four: Skip red meat at least one day a week (p.56).

Chapter Five: Never microwave food in plastics.  Use tempered glass or ceramic instead (p.65).

Chapter Six: Wash most of your laundry in cold water (p.81).

Eye Opener: CSPI

After visiting the Eating Green Calculator I have calculated what my environmental burden is, based on the amount of animal products I eat in one year. According to the calculator, I am currently using 0.8 acres of grain and grass needed for animal feed, 44.9 pounds of fertilizer used to grow animal feed, 0.4 pounds of pesticides used to grow animal feed, and there is 5,692 pounds of manure created by the animals I eat. After recalculating my "Eating Green Calculator" I cut the amount of yogurt, cheese, and eggs that I eat a week in half, this lowered my impact to 0.6 acres of grain and grass needed for animal feed, 37.7 pounds of fertilizer used to grow animal feed, 0.3 pounds of pesticides used to grow animal feed, and there was 4,864 pounds of manure created by the animals I eat. This is pretty hard for me to put into perspective how bad this really is, and if changing my diet would really make that much of a difference.

I will not be taking the pledge provided by the Eating Green Calculator website. I won't be taking the pledge because I have been working pretty hard on keeping with a healthy, well-balanced diet. I think my numbers probably change every week on the amount of everything that I eat, this was just my rough estimate. Something that I will do is try to eat more locally grown foods, which will benefit the environment by reducing shipping pollution.

Read 'n' Seed #2

This week I read Chapters 1-3 of Do One Green Thing; Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, pages 1-52.

The water bottle I
bought to replace my
use of disposable
water bottles.

Chapter one was titled "Drinking Water".  I have always known that disposable plastic water bottles weren't good for the environment, but I didn't really know how bad they were, or that the water in them isn't always better than your tap water.  This chapter gave a few fun facts about what would happen if every American stopped buying water in disposable bottles.  My favorite of the facts was, "We'd save the nonrenewable fossil fuels that are used in the plastic, which equals seventeen million barrels of oil annually - enough for fuel one million U.S. cars for a year.  Adding in the energy used for pumping, processing, transporting, and refrigerating bottled water, Americans would save fifty-four million barrels of oil, the same as running three million cars for a year." (p. 30).  After reading this chapter and hearing how much Dr. V hates disposable water bottles I was curious to hear more about their impact on the environment.  I found this "Use-and-Toss Plastic Bottle Facts" article and found it very interesting and helpful.  Since reading this chapter I have gone out and bought a reusable water bottle, I'm no longer contributing to significant amounts of waste created from disposable plastic bottles.

Chapter two was about produce.  It talked about buying locally and organic.  Something that I really like about this book is each chapter has a "Chose it or Lose it" section.  I found this chapter's "Chose it or Lose it" to be very helpful in guiding me towards what I should be trying to buy organic and what I can buy normally.  Some things the book says you should buy organic are apples, carrots, celery, and grapes.  These are the things I spend most of my produce money on, which sort of freaked me out, knowing I will probably need to start spending more money on produce.  The reasoning behind buying these things organic things is because the pesticides that are used to grow them can be bad for your health.

Chapter three was titled, "Fish".  I rarely eat fish, and never buy it, so I thought this chapter would be pretty useless to me, but they did have a "Chose it or Lose it" section that talked about which fish are better for your health, which I will base my choices off of when I go out to eat.  I was surprised to find that smaller fish are better for you.  This is because they, "eat low on the food chain, are shorter-lived, and thus collect fewer toxins in their fat than do big, long-lived predators such as swordfish" (p. 36).  At the end of the chapter the author provides us with a website where you can look up which locally caught fish are better for you to eat at that time.  This will be helpful for me because most of the time when I go to Red Lobster or something I tend to chose the locally caught fish.  that website is www.ewg.org/node/8151 (p.52).

Eye Opener: Ecological Footprint

I've heard about carbon footprints before, but I never really looked into what my carbon footprint would be.  I knew it would be pretty big.  I live in a big, drafty house.  I eat frozen meals a couple times a week. I drive back and fourth from the cities frequently.  Blah, blah, blah... After taking my Ecological Footprint Quiz  I have a new perspective on really how big my carbon footprint is.  The results to my quiz told me that if everyone lived like me we would need 5.2 earths to provide enough resources, to support my lifestyle it takes 23.1 global acres of the earth's productive area.  This is definitely an Eye Opener!  The website that I took the quiz on broke my usage up on a pie chart, showing that most of my large carbon footprint is due to my use of services, which I understand to be my electricity use.  This is something that I know I need to work on not using as much of.  In my room and in the living room at my house we have power strips that we can turn off when we're not using whatever is plugged into them.  Rarely do these strips ever get turned off, I plan to be more cautious about turning these off when I am not using them.  I also need to be more aware of turning off lights when I'm not using them.  We also use a lot of electricity during the winter to heat our large, drafty house.  This year I plan to get a higher-grade of the plastic to cover the windows so our heater doesn't have to work as hard to keep our house warm.  The other part of my pie chart that was pretty big was the food part.  I eat frozen meals a couple times a week because that is what I bring to work for dinners.  Instead of buying Lean Cuisine's I could make a large amount of food and freeze it, bringing the individual servings to work, this will lower my food part of my footprint greatly.  I know I've said it before, but I'll say it again, I really enjoy learning about how I can be more environmentally friendly, and this activity was just one more step in the right direction.

Read 'n' Seed 1: Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices

Click here to see a video of the
 author talking about the book and
 to read praises about the book.

I have chosen to read, Do One Green Thing: Saving the Earth Through Simple, Everyday Choices, by Mindy Pennybacker.  This book is sort of like the idiot's guide to going green.  Since high school I have been interested in doing things that are better for myself and the environment, but I never really knew where to start.  This book maps it out and makes choosing this or that very clear.  I am very anxious to get reading and share the things that I learn.

GreenerPenny.com is Mindy Pennybacker's website, which provides a lot of going-green tips.  It also provides a list of media websites and blogs that she finds useful.  I have found that my favorite of the list is The Daily Green.

The book is 224 pages, not including the references.  The references are very helpful, including pictures of things to look for, such as organic food labels, which Mindy directs you to throughout the chapters.

I will read the book in four sections:  

Week One: Chapters 1-3

Week Two: Chapters 4-6

Week Three: Chapters 7-9

Week Four: Chapters 10-12