Don’t Drink The Water

I don’t want to sound like an alarmist (I know that climate change deniers believe all environmentalists are alarmists, but that is an argument for another day). I like to look at facts and change my behavior as more information is discovered. My long-term girlfriend and occasional guest blogger went to the doctor not too long ago and they mentioned that we shouldn’t be drinking the tap water in our area.

That didn’t sound good.

We can’t afford a whole house water filtration system and most of the small carbon filters don’t get out everything that is in our water. Our solution at the moment is to go to the local Meijer store, which is right by where I work, and buy bulk, filtered water. It tastes great and is only 29¢/gallon. We take empty glass containers and refill them.

You can go here and check the quality of the water in your area. 

Green Links For The Week Of 2.24.13

Here are some green stories I've come across this week:

German town goes off the grid, achieves energy independence

Miracle grow: Indian farmers smash crop yield records without GMOs

Biggest US Climate Rally Ever Pushes Obama to Reject Keystone Pipeline

Milk Crate Furniture How-to

China Will Tax Carbon Emissions

Green Links For The Week Of 2.17.13

Here are some green links I've come across this week:

Green Lane Project meets in NYC to discuss a more bike-friendly U.S.

Tesla, the Times, and how to drive an electric car

Sanders and Boxer introduce ‘fee and dividend’ climate bill; greens tickled pink

Do GMO Crops Really Have Higher Yields?

Top 5 Things To Never Put Down The Drain

Something Green You Can Do Today For Free

I’ve mentioned this before but it bears repeating: wash your clothes in cold water! Before you think about going out and buying the natural but more expensive green laundry detergents or make your own, see if the one you have works with cold water. A lot of them do. If the bottle doesn’t say, do some searching online. There are some cold water specific products but I think you may be paying a premium for unnecessary additives. It is estimated that if everyone in America used cold water only we would save $3 billion dollars annually and reduce or CO2 emissions by a full percent. That is with only this small change.

Something else beneficial that comes from washing your clothes in cold water is that your clothes will last longer. Hot water is the faster way to wear out your clothes. So not only will you be spending less on doing your laundry you will be spending less on your clothes as they will last longer.

Are there any benefits to washing with hot water? Yes. The hot water will remove soils better, kill bacteria better, and allow the water to move around more thus getting the clothes cleaner. But most of our clothes don’t get that dirty. Instances where you may still want to use hot water is if you have a small child that has lots of food spilled on their clothes. Try to get all of the clothes gathered up in one load.

POTUS mentions GW in the SOTU

With more and more people believing that Climate Change is real and that we need to do something about it, it is great to see it thrust in the middle of the political debate. I don’t know how long it will stay there but it is good that President Obama is bringing it up. Let’s hope some action is taken.

Downsizing

“Simplicity, simplicity, simplicity!”

-- Henry David Thoreau

Every now and again it is good to go through what you have and see if you still really need all of it. This used to be done at “Spring Cleaning” but there is no need to wait for a certain time of year to do this. We are at a time were we have so much stuff it is starting to own us. If you have a basement, or attic, or storage unit go through it and see if you really need everything that is there. If you aren’t using it or don’t plan on using it in the next six months get rid of it. Give it to someone, recycle it, or sell it. You never know, you may find that you need much less space than you thought. Or you may find something that someone else could really use.

Recently I went through the shelves at the bottom of my basement steps. I have two large shelves and after some reorganizing, recycling, and donating I have a free shelf for things like canning. 

The Shelf on the right used to be overflowing