Green Options

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With Fourth of July just a few days away, I bet that many of you are getting all geared up and stocked up for a celebration of some sort. Be it a barbeque, a trip, a fireworks display, or some other means of declaring your independence from work, the long weekend ahead will likely require gathering adequate provisions to keep the festivities lively and the revelers happy.

With this certain demand, our faithful suppliers are getting geared up and stocked up as well. So as you head down the aisle of your local grocery store or supercenter or what have you, you are sure to encounter lots of possible choices for what to spend your money on. And I can guarantee that most of them will be disposable. Plastic or paper plates, plastic cups, plastic utensils (including the beloved spork), paper napkins and tissues, plastic garbage and grocery bags, styrofoam or plastic coolers, etc., etc., etc. The list is endless…and this is only for party favors!

I do as much as I can to conserve resources and live sustainably. I remember at one family holiday smorgasbord, I believe it was Thanksgiving, I cunningly hid all of the plastic plates, cups, and utensils in a trunk in the closet in order to force my family to use the real, washable ones instead. No one was very happy with me, though I did convince one aunt to play along and stand up in my defense, but by using the normal stuff we reduced the amount of trash that day significantly compared to usual holidays. (And yes, for you cynics out there, I did indeed help out doing the dishes!)

Despite my ecological consciousness and consumer conscience, and despite my stratagems to thwart the forces of disposability, I cringe at the many disposable items that I still use in my own home. For example, disposable razors. These oh-so-convenient, many-to-a-pack, everything’s-a-dollar mainstays of male grooming seem rather benign at first glance (unless you nick yourself shaving, of course). Yet each one consists mostly of plastic, which is made from petroleum, and after a few shaves that plastic and the metal goes into the trash…and so on then to a landfill where it sits amidst all the other non-biodegradable garbage into perpetuity.

A location often dreamt of in my household, for its summer weather and prime surfing, Hawaii now goes up another notch in my estimation with the passing of a bill which makes it mandatory for water heaters to be powered by solar energy.

Signed in to law by Governor Linda Lingle (there’s a name for you), a republican, the bill requires that the energy savers be part of the new home landscape starting 2010. It prohibits issuing a permit for building a single-family home without a solar water heater, and for a state that relied on imported fossil fuels more than any other American state, this can only be a good thing.

Hawaii manages to import about 90% of its energy from foreign countries, according to state data.

The Energy Star Washing Machine vs. The Wonderwash vs. The Basin vs. The Future of Home Dry Cleaning

In this 4-way battle royal to earn the title “The Best Washing Machine for You and the Earth According to Joe”, a variety of factors need to be considered. Water use, electricity use, size of family, and–of course–convenience all need to be given a good look. And even though I am of the mindset that we have way too many unnecessary conveniences in our society, I am aware that some conveniences have proven to be beneficial time savers.

In reading for this post I had to turn to No Impact Man to see what his thoughts were on the subject, because, unlike my familiarity with the reel mower, I have never used an alternative to the washing machine. I was surprised to learn his thoughts.

The laundry machine is the one appliance I believe makes the difference between a life of drudgery and not. If cars are the Devil, as I think they are, then laundry machines are God.

Back in late May, I shared some information about the Medis 24 x 7 PowerPack, a fuel cell that charge a variety of electronic devices through the use of interchangeable tips. Last night I noticed an story on CNET’s Crave (”the gadget blog”) about a new application for the cell. It described an LED flashlight with an adapter to plug into a PowerPack that can operate for as long as six weeks on a single fuel cell.

As far as green gadgets go, this little desktop computer will give Dell and (to a lesser extent) Apple a run for their money.

The CherryPal promises to be affordable, efficient, and powerful enough for the average PC user. At first glance, that stats on the system look modest, and for good reason. This design actually cuts out 20% of PC components to reduce energy usage. But fear not, despite being small (the size of a paperback), the CherryPal claims it can start up in 20 seconds, and cloud computing provides more power/storage when you need it. A Linux operating system (now more user friendly than ever), and cloud computing means you won’t need to worry about viruses or install protective programs that can slow down your PC.

Recently, I wrote about the financial ROI of Green Investing. Let’s drill down further…

In finance, an investment is a “thing” you buy with money for the purpose of getting both getting your money back, and getting more money in the form of “interest”, “capital appreciation” or both. This “thing” is a piece of paper called an Investment Product, also known as a Security.

It started with a long discussion betweeen my wife and me. We each thought it’d be fun to get a scooter, but worried that, for us–a 1 car, 2 bike family–we would actually be doing more environmental damage by getting a scooter. Meaning, unlike many who get a scooter to use instead of their car (wise choice), we’d end up using our scooter instead of our bikes (un-wise choice). Being our primary mode of transport, the bikes would likely fall victim to the newer, sexier, faster scooter.

This got me on the thought process that I wished more people would first give a bike a try for their short trips, instead of viewing the scooter as their only alternative to combat gas prices. Of course it’s more work–but more work can be more rewarding. Which got me to thinking that there are plenty of tools that have traded elbow grease for electricity–yet we have benefitted little. Which turned me on to this mini-series…

Just as John Henry fought the steam hammer to show that human power cannot be undone by the industrial revolution. I am hoping to open a few eyes to the alternatives that are possible when we replace one of our everyday machines with the same machine sans motor/electricity/etc.
In the interest of full disclosure John Henry did beat the steam hammer but he also dropped dead in the process.
That said, I will be realistic with my comparisons–I don’t want anybody to drop dead of exhaustion. I’m sure I’ll find, in some cases, the modern invention to be more beneficial to the manual powered version it replaced.

Not exactly washing without water, but with less than 2% of a normal washing machine. That’s only 1 cup of water for those sweaty gym clothes, grubby kid-wear, and foul socks.

Washing with soap and water has been THE WAY to clean most clothes for so long, it’s hard to imagine reducing H2O by 98%. What this technology lacks in sexy bells and whistles, it gains in implications. Billions of gallons of clean water could be conserved every year simply by adopting this dry cleaning technology. Less water also means less drying, which can add energy savings to those with energy-hungry clothes dryers.

The Center for Health, Environment & Justice, a non-profit organization dedicated to preventing environmental health harms caused by chemical threats, recently released a report stating that shower curtains made with PVC contain numerous harmful chemicals including volatile organic compounds (VOCs), phthalates (think CA toys), and organotins. These ubiquitous shower curtains are likely to have adverse effects on the nervous, respiratory and reproductive systems.

I don’t have enough hands to count the number of those shower curtains I’ve used in my brief 23 years, but it’s a lot. I’m happy to say I switched to cloth a few months ago after having a conversation about the possible effects of continued exposure to these shower curtains with my friend John Laumer of treehugger.com. I’m glad to see our fears were not confounded. The smell you most often associate with the excitement of a new product is actually a sign of off-gassing, a process by which harmful toxins become airborne through evaporation. There should be no rejoicing when this smell is encountered.

Some interesting findings from the study:

This morning I brushed my teeth with a recycled toothbrush. As I looked in the mirror, toothpaste frothing, the thought that it had all started with this simple piece of plastic was enough to make me stop for a second. And then I kept brushing.

Over a year ago, one of our designers in our firm brought in a Preserve toothbrush made by Recycline, along with a Stonyfield Farm yogurt cup that mentioned Recycline recycling all their plastic yogurt containers. The toothbrush was their first product—the foundation of all the Preserve products—it received placement in specialty stores, then eventually mass merchants and even a cameo role in a movie (Will Farrell brushes his teeth with it repeatedly in “Stranger than Fiction”).

We had been reviewing the products that we had made in the past and wanted to work with a company that reflected our own mission for sustainability. After all, we didn’t endure the looks from the natives when we turned a sewage treatment plant into our company headquarters for nothing (ah, but that’s another blog entry).

So, as the head of design, I did something and … I called them. I talked to someone on the other line, made a proposal to expand their product line and hung up.

Over the course of many phone calls and meetings, Recycline took us up on our offer to supply them with product design and refinement in exchange for a royalty on whatever went to market. A lot of firms our size have worked on royalties for years but this was our first try. And I’m happy to report that after less than a year, several of the products we developed with Recycline are available at Whole Foods including food storage containers, cutting boards and colanders. (For the whole story, check out Metropolis: Cooking with Leftovers)

When the spirit of carpooling meets capitalism, what do you get? Of the possible answers, one new green one is Earth Aid Group Buys from the folks at Earth Aid Enterprises. This interesting concept brings green consumers together in order to harness their collective power and “leverage,” as it were, for large-volume discounts on eco-friendly goods.

For the most part, the muscle power that comes with large-volume merchandising has belonged to big corporations–Wal-Mart is by far the best example. When these megabusinesses flex that muscle, they often put the squeeze on more than just merchandise manufacturers; they also can squeeze out smaller, local businesses. After all, why would shoppers pay more for products at small pharmacy, grocery, and appliance stores when they can go to a single SUPERSTORE and buy everything they need at one place for a lower price? As these superplexes mushroom in size and number, the local “little guy” may quickly get strangled and suffocate.

In contrast, Earth Aid’s Group Buys puts the power back in the hands of consumers. As far as I can see, this is a great potential resource for consumers who are looking for ways to go green without spending all their hard-earned green. That is, Earth Aid allows consumers to wield the same power as large corporations–and so get those same big-purchase discounts from the manufacturers. Or, as Earth Aid puts it:

This process allows all of us to band our purchasing power together into a formidable force–which we use to drive prices down. And it works because of a very simple proposition–manufacturers can cut prices progressively for larger and larger bulk orders.