Recycling the Un-recyclable

I have thousands of milk caps. Thousands. I’m not lying. I started collecting them about the time we began curb side recycling. I put the bottles in the recycling, but couldn’t bear to throw out the bright plastic lids. Why couldn’t they be recycled too? I figured the recyclers would figure it out eventually, and until then I’d save them. But then they never did.

The lids piled up (along with the yogurt containers, sour cream cartons, deli plastic, etc.). Slowly I found solutions to for my rapidly growing bins of plastic crowding the corners in our basement. Yogurt cups make perfect seed starter pots if you poke a few holes in the bottom for drainage. Sour cream containers are just about the right size to freeze chicken broth for future recipes (just under two cups). Ice Cream tubs are excellent for sending cookies to school for parties, and also for refilling with homemade ice cream.

But what to do with all those lids?

Save Money and Get a Clean House: Become a Hermit!

Our road is closed for construction. We have effectively lived at the tail of a long dead end street for the past month. At first we lamented the extra four miles it would take to get anywhere. The kids chaffed at the idea that their new bus stop was a ½ mile walk away. But as we near the completion of the project, I have mixed feelings. 

I’ve grown accustomed to the quiet. I like the absence of traffic. I’ve enjoyed running in the early mornings, knowing the only cars I will encounter are my neighbors who drive slowly past, waving to me and my dog. I savor the silence in the mornings as I hang out the laundry and the peaceful evenings on the screened in porch.

 The detour has changed my life in other ways. I know longer “run to the store real quick” for anything. I save up my errands and don’t go “over the hill” (as my husband calls it) until I have to. It’s saved gas, but more than that, it’s saved time. I had no idea how much time I’d been squandering. Staying home more has led to a semi-clean house, a semi-weeded garden, and even to semi-exercised horses! 

I wonder if when the road is open again I will go back to my frequent wanderings. I am grateful for the inconvenience of the state’s odd choice of construction projects (they are replacing a grate that ferries a teeny, tiny run-off stream under the road to join Deer Creek to the tune of $900,000. The new grate could accommodate a small river.). I’m hopeful that my hermit habit will stick. I like being home more and I’ve saved money, not just on gas. When my oldest was stumped for what to cook on his night, he opted for hot dogs. Having promised to provide him with all the ingredients he needed for his culinary endeavor, I was obligated to go over the hill for the rolls. But as I headed for the car, I thought, “Can I make hot dog rolls?” Yes! I can! Similar scenarios played out again and again, as I made due or got creative with menus and school projects. 

Can you find the adorable dog watching?

We are all driving too much, wasting gas and precious time. Perhaps a state enforced confinement isn’t the motivator you need to evaluate how many times you run to Walmart. What if you couldn’t go out? Could you work with what you have? Our road will open back up soon, but I’m going to try to retain the new habits the detour has given me. I like the hermit life.

 

No Impact Man

My children and I watched the film, No Impact Man recently. It’s a documentary about a young couple and their baby daughter who live on Fifth Avenue in New York City and attempt to live for a year making no impact on the environment. This leads to eating locally grown organic food, generating no trash except for compost, using no traditional electricity, and using no carbon-fueled transportation. The film was premiered at the 2009 Sundance Film Festival.

I will confess to allowing my younger children to believe No Impact Man was some kind of super hero who never touches anyone, right up until the moment we dimmed the lights and hit the remote. For the first ten minutes, my seven-year-old kept turning to me and asking, “Are they just going to talk the whole time?” but soon he was just as interested as I was in the adventure unfolding before us.

The point is brought up several times during the movie that perhaps this is all just some gimmick to allow Colin (No Impact Man) to promote his blog and sell his book. A tactic I can completely understand. I confess to feeling not a small amount of jealousy that I didn’t think of this first and that my blog doesn’t attract radio interviewers on the phone and Good Morning America to my door. Colin is tortured emotionally by this issue as he deals with the hate mail his project generates. He definitely hit a nerve. The surprising thing was not the nasty letters from meat-eating, liberal hating, materialistically motivated folks, but the letters from environmentalists and sustainable-living proponents. They felt that his project was embarrassing and silly. He faces his own demons here and comes to the conclusion that he’s going to do what it takes to publish his books, so why not actually use that energy to do some good with his writing. If he can change his own lifestyle and maybe inspire someone else to change theirs, even the tiniest bit, than he’s doing something worthwhile (and increasing his odds of selling his book and becoming famous in documentary-land). I respect that. But I’m still jealous.

We enjoyed learning about the “Pot in a Pot” refrigerator, how quickly added worms can make compost, and the art of washing your clothes in the bathtub with your feet. We were grossed out (as were No Impact Wife’s co-workers) at the idea of not using toilet paper. (They used scraps of washable fabric.) We were very self-satisfied when they talked about making their own cleaning supplies (altogether now: “We already do that!!”). I think this film put my own efforts in to perspective for my kids. Maybe mom isn’t so crazy, she could be a lot worse. I caught my 13-year-old watching me warily to see if I was getting any ideas.

I did get a few ideas and spent some time the next day journaling out my fantasy of living a sustainable life off the grid. But now I’ve come back down to reality and begun to ponder what I can take away from the film. I think it makes me even more conscious and committed to living an earth-friendly life. Especially because I know that an earth-friendly life is a human-friendly life and it makes us all healthier.

I’m not ready to shut off my electricity, but I did send away for a solar-powered water heater information packet. This morning I flicked on the light in the bathroom and then realized I was doing that out of habit. There’s plenty of light in our bathroom. I don’t really need that light. I’m just programmed to reach right and hit the switch each time I walk in to a room. So I’m making a resolution to stop using lights I don’t need. My children have the same habit. I’m setting out to break the habit for all of us. I happily chirped, “Let’s have less impact!” as I remind them to turn off their lights.

The No Impact Family doesn’t use any kind of carbon-fueled transportation. They use their bicycles and scooters. I’ve got several serviceable four legged animals in the pasture, but I’m not sure my town could handle me riding up to the post office on my aging pony. So as much as that seems like a great option, it’s not really an option. I guess I’m not ready to risk public humiliation in my quest for a greener life. Bicycle riding is also an option although we live in a bike un-friendly area with narrow winding, hilly roads with no shoulders. The sidewalk-free shopping areas in town would be just as dangerous for bikers. I’ve even found that as I bike for pleasure, cars pass frighteningly close to me and some drivers seem to scowl in annoyance that I am on the road. Public transportation in this little rural/suburban outpost is virtually non-existent, although we do have two Park-n-Rides, which is a good thing.

Still, I do think I can do less driving. I need to combine all my errands in to one or two times a week. I tend to jump in the car and run out whenever I need something or the longing for wi-fi hits me. I’m going to commit to putting less miles on my car. Truly I have no idea how to do this since my kids have a myriad of activities that require my taxi service. I will start by driving them to practice and bringing my laptop or book and hanging around rather than dropping them and going home, only to go back an hour later. That will cut out a few miles. But at least I have an excuse when they beg to go to Rita’s or want to burn through their allowance at Wal-Mart – “Let’s have less impact!”

My kids were uncharacteristically quiet at the conclusion of the film so I don’t know for sure what they thought. I do believe the things they saw on the film will stay with them and hopefully lead to some questions down the road. I’m also, of course, hoping it generates a little more buy-in on their part for all my living organic shenanigans. I will caution anyone who is offended by the occasional foul word, that these are New Yorkers living in New York in the film, so there is a little f-this and f-that here and there. When the first one came flying across the screen, my kids raised their eyebrows in unison and looked at me. I said, “I think you’re smart enough to handle adults using bad language.” And we moved on. That said, I think it’s a great movie to watch with your kids. It’s tempting to be defeatist when it comes to saving the environment when you see the incredible waste that is generated every day by our culture. Most likely we can’t change the majority of people, but we can change the mindset of their kids. Kids are much more flexible and easily inspired. They want to help.

I know my little noble efforts don’t amount to much. But I keep thinking about No Impact Man and his sadness and desolation when he wonders if what he’s doing is silly. He laments that he is only one person. But we are all only one person and if each of us made just a few changes we could have a great impact for good. I don’t think No Impact Man was successful in having no impact on the environment, but I’m hoping that he is successful at having an impact on the rest of us.

What's hiding in your cupboards?

Using what you have seems to be the theme this week. Those of us who didn’t grow up during the Great Depression are only now beginning to appreciate what it means to use what you have, make do, substitute, and wear things out. I am of the generation that thought nothing of buying a new stereo because it was “better” even though the one I have now sounds just fine. My husband appreciates the finer points of the latest tweeter or woofer or what have you and would argue the need for newer and better until he’s on his deathbed, so maybe I should choose a better example than stereos. Let’s say clock radios or dish racks or couch cushions. Most of us are inclined to throw out or give away our old, but perfectly good stuff, when something nicer catches our eye. I see that trend changing a little in light of the current economic situation and this is good for our planet, if not our factories.

I’m all about using what you have. I still have a palm pilot (which I only began using last winter when my husband threatened to throw it out after I ignored it for several years. He brings home his leftover electronics for me on a regular basis and I ignore them on a regular basis). I don’t want the latest greatest phone-organizer-gps-internet-video game-e-mail gadget. I’m fine with my ancient phone (no key pad? You can’t text? OMG!). I’ve learned to appreciate the GPS that came free with my laptop last year. It’s so last year though with the cord trailing down over my dash and plugging in to the lighter outlet. My palm pilot has Ms Pacman on it – what more could I want? To be honest, there are moments (and they are fleeting) when I think how cool it would be to have just one small gadget that fit in my pocket instead of my herd of outdated, noisy, slow electronics. But then I’m consumed with guilt at the thought of throwing out such useful things and I recommit to my position of ‘no new stuff’. Maybe it’s the mom in me – I’m comfortable being the martyr. “No don’t worry about me. I don’t mind. I’ll eat the burnt side…”

So back to what I wanted to write about in the first place. We all need to get back to using what we have. And that includes food. If your cabinets and refrigerators look anything like mine they have all kinds of unidentified objects cowering in the very back. A jar of bean curd or anchovy paste that was purchased for some complicated recipe you never got around to making. The orange marmalade your kids won’t eat because it tastes like Motrin. A gourmet dip mix you were suckered in to buying for some fundraiser. We’ve actually moved some of this stuff. My husband pulled out a can of clam sauce recently and said he remembered buying it at the grocery where we lived two houses ago! Thanks to modern preservatives though, it is still good!

I want to challenge you today. Be brave. Look in to the back of your cabinets, drawers and refrigerators. Pull something out and use it. And then do it again. See if you can get by without the grocery store this week. Imagine that some national disaster has occurred and you only have the food in your house to live on. I’m guessing that if we truly had to most of us could survive for months, maybe longer.

I’ll give you an example of using what you have. Vegetables are one thing I can’t stand to see go to waste. It was this issue, plus the multitudes of cucumbers we were drowning in a few months ago that led me to create a new salad. I call it chopped salad and it is basically everything still in your crisper drawer (plus anything still growing in your garden) chopped up really small and mixed together – kind of like coleslaw but without the cabbage (unless you have the remnants of a cabbage head rolling around your vegetable drawer). To this concoction I add my favorite dressing, cashews, and croutons (made from leftover bread). Not only is this a great way to use what you have, it’s low in calories and makes a huge salad that you can eat for days.

This weeks chopped salad (pictured) is carrots (our garden is lousy with them right now), cucumber (not sure where this one came from since cucumber season ended a month ago, but it wasn’t too rubbery), the small center stalks that no one wants to eat left from two packs of celery, mystery peppers (the peppers that were supposed to be hot pablano red peppers but turned out to be slightly misshapen sweet green peppers in disguise), the first of my second batch of green beans, and a gorgeous sweet red pepper plucked fresh today. I use a hand chopper that I purchased from pampered chef, but you could probably use a food processor. The dressing I love is the recipe featured in my post about lettuce a few months back (now you have to go look up that post if you can’t stand not knowing!). If you’re not going to eat the entire salad in one sitting, I recommend leaving the dressing, nuts, and croutons out until you’re ready to use it.

Our dinner tonight will be chicken, chopped salad, and something from the back of the pantry. I don’t know yet what this mystery side dish will be, but I’m thinking there is probably some couscous back there from my couscous phase or maybe some red quinoa leftover from when I was dabbling with different kinds of quinoa. Or maybe some random pasta purchased for a recipe that never saw the light of day. Who knows? That’s the fun and the challenge of creating something using what you have! So I’m laying down the gauntlet – go search through your cupboards. Use what you have. I’d love to hear what you come up with! You never know, it might become your new favorite recipe!

Talking Trash and Earth Hour

This morning as I was crushing another cereal box for the recycling bin and dropping the apple peels in the compost, I realized that trash has changed a lot since I was a kid. Back then (and I won’t say when “back then” was) we threw everything away. I remember we had three big trash cans in our garage filled to the brim and then some. The garbage men walked up our driveway, lifted the garage door, and carted them out to the street. Then they put the trash cans back in the garage and closed the door again. Times have changed. Between composting, recycling, and my plastic container fetish, we have about two or three bags of trash each week. They all fit in one trash can that we roll down to the street. The garbage men pick them up, along with all the recycling, empty them in their truck, and fling the cans back in to our driveway with as much force as possible. Sometimes the can rolls back in to the street to create an obstacle course for our neighbors. Like I said, trash has changed.

My kids have grown up with compost and recycling. They don’t know any different. They know all about saving the planet and global warming. They are concerned about the rainforest. Teaching your kids to live a life that is good for them and for this world isn’t as hard as it used to be. Being green is “in”. As much as they might complain about changes to their lifestyle that involve the loss of cheese curls and soda, they will adapt. And it will be what they know. Once they become parents themselves they’ll even appreciate it.

This weekend there is a great opportunity to create a memory for your children and do something good for the planet. Last year 50 million people participated in Earth Hour and created the largest voluntary power-down in history. This year it could be even bigger. I’m already planning our evening. I’m gathering candles and games and yummy snacks. At 8:25, we’ll send the kids all over the house to turn off everything. Even though Earth Hour organizers are only directing us to turn off lights, we’re going for broke in our household. We have a Black and Decker gadget that tells us how much power we’re using in our house at any given moment – we’ll try to make it say 0. We’ll light a fire if it’s cold and light lots and lots of candles and then for one hour we will be together and have fun without using any electricity. My kids are stoked for this, as am I. We can’t wait. What can your family do for Earth Hour? Don’t miss this opportunity to teach your children about conservation and have a great family memory to show for it.

One other thought, if 8:30-9:30pm this Saturday doesn’t work for you, pick another time. Your kids will never know it wasn’t the real “Earth Hour”. Besides if you do it sometime within 24 hours of our Earth Hour, you’re bound to be participating in Earth Hour somewhere on the planet. It’s important that we find ways to pass on our commitment to a planet-conscious lifestyle. Here’s a great chance. And don’t forget Earth Day is coming in April – start making plans now!

You can learn all about Earth Hour at www.earthhour.org. Earth Hour is a worldwide event. You can check out other people’s posts, videos, and tweets from all over the world. You can join the Earth Hour group or just be a fan on Facebook. Isn’t it cool to be part of something so big?