I realized tonight, in preparation for our weekly lights out on Wednesday, that I hadn't posted an update on how well we are doing in our quest to reduce our impact.
1. Wednesday lights out: I would say that we have been mildly successful. Sometimes we're just not able to do it on Wednesdays, so I am contemplating moving it to another day... or possibly just picking a day at the beginning of the week when we can.
I was a little depressed about our less than 100% success until I read this....
"...many chose to light candles as an alternative. And, while I certainly get besotted by the mood of candlelight and the warm, cozy feeling it invokes, it doesn't come without environmental consequence.
Here's the trade-off: if you get your electricity from green sources* (wind, hydro, solar, etc.), switching over to a seemingly innocuous candle is a bit of mental legerdemain. Were the candles 100% beeswax or soy with a 100% cotton wick? Or were they the cheaper paraffin (fossil fuel) kind? Did they burn cleanly or did they actually contribute to increased carbon dioxide emissions?
For those of you not intimately knowledgeable about standard paraffin candles, paraffin** is essentially hydrocarbon, or a heavy alkane fraction distilled straight from crude oil. Even if 80% of your electricity comes from coal and fossil fuel fired power stations, burning candles is very polluting and certainly very greenhouse gas and carbon dioxide emissions intensive, even more so than electric lighting. In other words, for every paraffin candle that is burned to replace electric lighting during Earth Hour, greenhouse gas emissions over the course of the one hour are increased by 9.8 g of carbon dioxide."
Read more interesting environmental (crunchy) stuff here.
So, I don't feel as bad because I am certain that my candles are the not so innocuous paraffin kind, which, we most definitely would have used. We are now on a quest to find soy candles.
The days that we are successful, are lots of fun. The kids love it, and say that its like going out to a beautiful restaurant because of the candle light. We are slightly curious as to how they describe our electricity free days to other people because Luis once said something like, "I like it when we have no electricity." Hmm...context? Lol
2. Our compost is doing well, however, we have a small lot, which isn't conducive to the process, so, this Friday we are going to buy the Envirocycle Compost Tumbler.
It is more expensive than I'd like to spend, but it should save me a fortune in the compost and organic fill that I buy every year, and never quite have enough of.
3. I've already been able to harvest herbs: basil, chives, mint, lemon balm, parsley, and cilantro from my garden, as well as some baby mesclun mix, and quite soon some arugula. We're trying to stay on the 100 mile diet, which is substantially easier now that the farmers markets are open.
4. We are, and continue to be, vegetarians for a variety of reasons, including the environment. For those of you who don't know, the meat industry has a huge negative impact on the world we live in, for a little snippit about this go here.
Other random things that we do that you could do too....
Shop at thrift stores, ebay, & garage sales whenever possible.
Grow your own food
Use a diva cup
Wash your clothes in cold water
Use cloth shopping bags
Pass on the plastic bags at the store when you only have one or two things
Buy your food locally
Limit your shower time
Line dry (or hanger dry like we do, lol) your clothes
Limit your electricity use by, turning off the t.v., having a picnic in the park.
Compost your food, yard scraps
Reuse some of your grey water
I challenge all of you to pick one thing that you don't do, and do it. Tell me how it goes.
Gotta go as our lights out day is already about to begin.....
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