Archive for the ‘Green Living’ Category
An Easy Way to Save Fuel and Money
Posted by: RJ in Green Living on November 20th, 2009
Unfortunately I did not have a lot of time to put into this post. My original plan was to discuss the enormous energy losses that are the direct result of poor traffic management. I have several colleagues who have spent a good deal of time researching this and the numbers are staggering. Improving traffic flow is one of the most cost effective ways to reduce oil use. I was unable to pull this data together for today’s post so I decided to write on another measure which is even more effective and costs absolutely nothing.
The approach does not require scientific breakthroughs, it does not require huge capital expenditures, and it is something most of us have probably done before.
It is…..carpooling.
Two people driving separately in 30-mpg cars use 33% more fuel than the two of them carpooling in a single 20-mpg car. The US could literally cut its vehicle fuel consumption in half if it simply doubled the occupancy of every vehicle on the road while holding total miles driven constant. There are several start-up companies that are working to make this closer to reality. One of the better known is GoLoco.org (this company was started by the same woman who founded Zipcar).
With the advancement of mobile technology lots of people are beginning to think seriously about forming “smart” carpooling groups. The basic idea is that a mobile-phone based program allows drivers to input your travel destination before driving anywhere. Other users (riders) of the system input their desired destination (their current location is already known). The drivers are notified of any riders that can be picked up and dropped off along the way. Some people are even exploring the idea of charging occupants small fees and automatically paying the driver for the distance traveled. This is essentially a distributed taxi cab model – where everyone that joins the organization can earn small amounts of money by allowing people to carpool with them. The rates would be substantially lower than a cab fare. There are obvious potential legal issues with this and cab drivers would strongly object however in theory it has strong promise.
Several people I know are considering several ways to begin implementing this. The most promising idea I have heard is to launch this carpooling system on college campuses where there are lots of people driving to the same places at a given time. Another benefit of use on college campuses is that it would provide students a great way to meet people. Of course launching this would require that all members of the group pass a background check and would require some form of feedback for drivers and riders. Obnoxious riders or dangerous drivers would get poor ratings that could lead to their removal from the system.
At any rate, my thought with this entry was to get you to start thinking about sharing a ride with someone on your commute. While there is certainly a convenience factor with driving your own car, there are likely opportunities for you to carpool that you are missing. As carpooling apps or phone groups further develop, the lack of freedom associated with carpooling may completely disappear – given the ever expanding capabilities of our mobile devices this may be a reality sooner than you think.
3 Random Things You May Have Missed
Posted by: Todd Metheny in Frugal Living, Green Living, Managing Finances, Reviews on October 21st, 2009
In case you missed it...
I’ve been working on a pretty interesting appellate brief at work. It’s interesting, challenging, and mentally stimulating. It’s the kind of work we always say we want. It’s also hard. Seth Godin refers to the time when things get hard as “The Dip” (and wrote a book by the same name). It’s a phrase I’ve liked since I first heard it, and I find myself trying to push through things sometimes by telling myself, “you’re just in the dip right now, Todd, push through this.” So I’m pushing through it.
The three things I decided to pimp in this post are all things that should make your life easier, in some small regard, either by organizing data for you (see number 3), saving you a couple bucks (see number 2), or by making it easier for you to make sure your stuff is put to good use when you’re done with it (see number 1). I’m calling it the 3 things you may have missed, because if you’re the kind of person that reads a lot of blogs (and maybe even if you aren’t), you’ve probably either used or heard of these tools. Or maybe I’m just suffering from the curse of knowledge, and assuming, as people subject to the curse do, that anything I’ve heard about you’ve heard about. Obviously that’s not always the case. Without further ado:
1. Freecylce.org – I’m including Freecycle because I just think it’s a pretty cool idea. That’s why I wrote about Pimp this Bum. The concept is simple, people form local groups in their area. When you have something you don’t want anymore, you post the group and let them know what you have to offer. If you see something posted that you’re interested in, you can let them know that you’d like to have it. ”It’s the whole, one man’s trash…” philosophy. It’s green, too. They don’t want you to throw your old stuff away, because someone else might still be able to get some use out of it. Of course, you could give your stuff away (or sell it) on Craigslist or a like site as well, but Freecycle seems to be more of a community thing. If you’ve ever used it, I’d love to hear about your experience with it. My community here in St. Louis has over 6000 members. I’m thinking about checking it out. I’ll have a better read on how much value it adds after I do.
2. Restaurant.com – I’ve written about this little number before, and I tell people about it every chance I get. So does my wife. Between the two of us, I think Restaurant.com owes us for all the word of mouth promotion we’ve offered to help tip their site. If you’re not familiar with it, Restaurant.com typically offers you the opportunity to buy a $25 gift card for just $10. There’s a caveat and a bonus. The caveat is, you’ve got to spend $35 at the restaurant. Some other restrictions may apply. I’ve seen some that can only be used during the week. Some restaurants won’t allow you to use the certificates on alcohol. For the most part, though, you can use them as you please. The other thing to keep in mind is that these are usually newer restaurants or places trying to get noticed. Your favorite place probably won’t be on there (but hey, try something new). Those are the caveats.
The bonus is, if you sign up for email updates from Restaurant.com, you never have to pay $10 for the $25 gift card. Every week, you’ll get a coupon code by email that gives you at least 50% off. About once every two months, the discount code will give you 80% off (just $2 for a $25 gift card!). The week of 9/9/09 it was 90% off, but that’s the only time I’ve seen that after using Restaurant.com for about 2 years. For what it’s worth, this week’s discount is 70% and the password this week is “pumpkin.”
3. Mint.com – The other day I was talking to a mother of four, and she said something to me to the effect of, “I don’t know where all the money goes. We live frugally. We drive old cars. My kids wear second hand clothes. We don’t do anything extravagant. And yet the money is never where we need it to be.”
Keeping and maintaining a budget is hard to do. I admire people that can do it. Mint.com isn’t necessarily a budget substitute, but it sure can help. It can definitely help you answer the question – “where does the money go?” Mint tracks your purchases and spending, and categorizes it for you and attempts to develop a budget. It will also send you alerts when your bills are due, and has several other handy tools.
The annoying thing about Mint is that at first you spend a lot of time re-categorizing expenses that were they haven’t categorized properly. Mint does get smarter if you stick with it. It ends up being something that requires almost no effort on your part. The best thing about Mint is that it’s free. So if you don’t like it, nothing has been lost.
Hopefully one, some or all of these things offered value to some of you. Thanks for reading.
The Cost of Being a Vegetarian (or Vegan)
Posted by: Todd Metheny in Green Living on May 20th, 2009
My wife is a brand new vegan (I’m an omnivore). She’s been one for about 3 days now. She also gave up all diet and fat free food products in one fell swoop. I’m proud of her. Whenever someone would point out how pointless it was for her to eat foods with no calories, she would always say, “I know, I know.” She also decided that she’s going to avoid any processed foods at all costs. Her primary motivation is a basic desire to be healthy (ironically, I’m the animal lover out of the two of us), an ailment that a lot of medical doctors suffer from. She was also inspired by a book called Skinny Bitch, which I guess has inspired a lot of people to go vegetarian or vegan. I haven’t read the book myself, and my wife told me that she didn’t think I’d like it. The authors speak to the reader with a very authoritative voice, I guess, and my wife knows I don’t really like that. In fact, I tend to sort of pick apart assertions if they’re too absolute. It’s in my nature. She likes it, though. In fact, she’s encouraged me on numerous occasions to adopt a more authoritative voice on this blog. I think it comes down to a matter of personal style. The authors of this particular book have sold millions of copies of their book, so obviously whatever they’re doing is working for them.
From a health perspective, there’s really only one thing you get from meat, milk and eggs that you can’t get from any other food, and that’s Vitamin B12. If you’re a vegan, or are considering becoming one, make sure you take some type of supplement to get your allowance.
In any case, the vegan buzz around our house has caused a couple of developments around our house: (1) It’s caused me to eat less meat, a development I’m fine with (I’ve been trying to eat less meat for awhile anyway), and (2) It’s caused me to think a lot about the cost of meat substitutes and meat free products. Vegetarians eat fruits and vegetables, which aren’t any more expensive regardless of whether you’re an omnivore or a vegan. They aren’t more expensive, that is, unless you’re trying to exclusively eat organically grown fruits and veggies, which my wife is. The fact that organics cost more makes perfect sense. It’s cheaper to grow extra fruits and vegetables, and have that crop have a better yield, through the use of pesticides and artificial fertilizers and chemicals that cause the food to ripen more quickly. Without these, you have to wait longer for the food (and time is money), and potentially end up with less of it.
Consumer demand for organics is fairly inelastic, meaning that even as prices rise, demand essentially stays the same. This is likely because people who have made a lifestyle choice aren’t doing it based on factors that have anything to do with the price of the good they’re buying. If you believe that non-organics raise your risk of cancer, you don’t mind paying an extra $1.29 for the foods you’re buying. (For a more complete discussion on the US Food industry, check out this post by the blog’s resident energy expert, my brother-in-law RJ) RJ would add that the environmental savings of eating less meat is extreme and would easily dwarf the spending necessary to sustain this lifestyle.
Also expensive are the meat and dairy substitutes available to vegans. Now taking a place in our fridge is almond milk, as well as various organic premade bowls and meals, lots of tofu, etc. When my wife came home bearing these gifts, I asked about the grocery bill (I predict this will triple our grocery bill over time – it currently has been worse than that). She looked at me sweetly and smiled, “But I’m worth it, right?” She really is. Thanks for reading.
21 Ways Anyone Can Live Greener (and Save Money)
Posted by: Todd Metheny in Frugal Living, Green Living on March 11th, 2009
This is a list of ways you can change your life today. Please feel free to share others. I’d like to live a sustainable, greener life. If you can save money and the world simultaneously, why not give it a try? Here’s what I came up with (with the help of my trusty green consultant and site contributor, RJ):
1. Don’t drink bottled water. Bottled water uses a tremendous amount of energy to produce and sell, between the plastic used to bottle it to the energy used to ship wherever it’s going. As much as 40% of bottled water is just filtered tap water (which you can make yourself!). Plus, water out of your tap is a lot cheaper. Instead of paying close to a dollar for 12 oz. of water, consider getting a cup of water out of your faucet for less than a penny. Check out this post for more stats and facts about bottled water.
2. Pay your bills online and opt for paperless statements. The less paper being produced to mail you stuff you can read online, the better. Paying your bills online saves paper, money and fuel. You don’t have to buy stamps and you make the mailman’s (or woman’s) job a little easier.
3. Along the same reasoning used in #2, check out Zumbox to reduce the amount of paper being used even more.
4. Take those golf clubs, or anything else that’s heavy, out of your trunk. Of course, you’ve got to keep the basics – jumper cables, air chuck, flashlight, etc. but you don’t need to keep the golf clubs/toolbox/whatever in your trunk all season. You’ll get more exercise lugging them back and forth and you’ll save gas in the process.
5. Replace your windows with an energy efficient version. Save money on heating and cooling and get a nifty tax credit thanks to the stimulus package.
6. Buy locally grown fruits and vegetables. Head down to the closest farmer’s market and buy some super fresh fruits and veggies. You save lots of energy on food being shipped, and they’re often cheaper than at the supermarket. Plus, you support your local economy this way. When you buy something at Wal-Mart (or any large corporation), the corporation takes the profits and reinvests them in the company or distributes them to shareholders. When you buy something from a local businessman or farmer, they’re likely to keep that money flowing through your local economy by spending it at local businesses. This is always a good way to help yourself – spend your dollars where they might come back your way.
7. Install a programmable thermostat. This is easy, efficient, and you’ll be more comfortable to boot. Have your temperature gradually go down as it gets closer to bed time, then gradually get warmer closer to the time you get up (you’re always coldest when you first wakeup). These bad boys save money – and energy.
8. Drive with your cruise control on whenever you’re on the highway. It takes less energy (gas) to stay constant than to constantly slow down and speed up.
9. Eat less meat. For big meat eaters this may be the biggest opportunity for reducing your impact. Why? For each pound of meat produced, the animal must consume substantially more feed – production of this feed requires energy, water, and fertilizers. According to a late 90s Cornell study, each year in the US an estimated 41 million tons of plant protein is fed to livestock to produce an estimated 7 million tons of animal protein. In terms of energy, on average animal protein production requires 28 calories for every calorie of animal protein produced for human consumption. The most costly are beef and lamb, with ratios of 54:1 and 50:1, respectively. Turkey and chicken production are the most efficient (13:1 and 4:1, respectively) and grain production is on average 3.3:1. Animal production also consumes a tremendous amount of water. Grain-fed beef production takes 100,000 liters of water for every kilogram of meat. By comparison, chicken production uses 3500 L/kg; rice uses 1912 L/kg; wheat: 900 L/kg; and potatoes: 500 L/kg.
10. Use energy efficient lightbulbs. I know you know about this one. Incandescents produce more heat than light. Check out this post for a side by side comparison.
11. Use rechargeable batteries. Anytime there’s a reusable alternative for something, use that instead of using something you’re going to throw away.
12. Whenever possible, walk or ride your bike.
13. If you have a choice between plastic and glass bottles, choose plastic. It’s lighter, and therefore takes less energy to ship.
14. Turn off the water while you brush your teeth or shave.
15. Eat fewer processed foods. Processed foods take an enormous amount of energy to produce and have many negative health implications. See here for a discussion of the US Food System.
16. Avoid styrofoam whenever you can. It sucks.
17. Bring your own reusable shopping bag. Last time I was in Europe, you were expected to pay for shopping bags if you weren’t going to bring your own. I’d like to see the US lean this way. I’m not one of those people that insists that everything about Europe is better than everything about America – but they really do seem to have a leg up on us when it comes to energy conservation and the environment.
18. Line dry your clothes. We have an energy efficient dryer. The only problem is it doesn’t dry our clothes very well. Your dryer uses more energy than anything else in your house. Think about line drying once in awhile if you can.
19. Reuse plastic bags. My wife and I have gotten very good about doing this. If they’re dirty, wash them out. They’re surprisingly durable – and it’s a waste of money to throw something away that you can just as easily use again.
20. If you bring your lunch to work/school/whatever invest in some tupperware. Plastic wrap is much better than aluminum foil, but there’s a clear reusable alternative. Take advantage of it.
21. Unplug your cell phone charger, laptop, coffee maker, etc. when you aren’t using them. If they’re plugged in, they’re using some energy. Save yourself a little energy/money.
Some of these ideas are fairly obvious. Hopefully you took something positive away from it. This post is a work in progress. Please leave your energy saving ideas in the comments. I’d like to update the post (and change the number of tips) as new ideas come in. As always, thanks for reading.
This post was co-authored by RJ and I.
The US Food System
Posted by: RJ in Green Living on February 26th, 2009
This is a guest post from my brother-in-law, RJ. RJ is currently finishing up a PhD in mechanical engineering. He’sknowledgeable and passionate about all things energy. He also enjoys long walks on the beach. Hopefully, RJ will serve as the blog’s resident energy expert. I’ll direct any energy questions you may have to him. Look for more posts from him periodically.
The US uses significantly more food than it consumes. The USDA estimates that 3700 calories of food are supplied per person. Of these 3700 calories, approximately 2700 calories are consumed while the remaining 1000 calories (or 27%) are discarded (see here). This is appalling – how can so much food be wasted every day? Individual waste, such as tossing old bananas, pizza crusts and sour milk plays a major role. Additionally grocery stores discard blemished/damaged products and restaurants throw away anything that’s not sold the day it was prepared. Unfortunately this is only part of the story and the US food system is actually much worse.
The food industry is unique in that the available market size (calorie demand) scales almost linearly with population growth. I say almost linearly because US calorie consumption has been slowly rising, going from 2161 calories/day in 1970 to 2679 calories/day in 2006. For a food producer’s growth to sizably exceed that of population growth it traditionally had to displace competition. However over the past few decades a new approach has emerged, one that I feel is particularly interesting/bothersome. This new approach is the low calorie, chemically formulated “food product”. Daily calorie consumption is limited to an average of 2700 but by introducing calorie free foods the market size can quickly expand. Diet soda and Lay’s half-calorie potato chips are excellent examples. This is the industrialized food industry literally making “food products” that are less efficient – foods that intentionally have no/reduced energy value. This allows unlimited consumption with minimal weight gain consequences (i.e. 5 diet sodas per day). Notice I called them food products because many of them are not actually food.
Thus, that we waste 1000 calories per day is only part of the story. We also consume a vast amount of low calorie food product. This laboratory developed food product consists of a multitude of chemicals, many of them corn based. Due to the long supply chain and high degree of processing involved, these foods require enormous amounts of energy to “manufacture.”
And if this isn’t enough, the US food supply is becoming increasingly processed (this includes many organic foods as well). These energy intensive processed foods are being developed to utilize a very small number of input materials (primarily corn and soy) and are leading to single crop/monoculture farms. These single crop farms rely on petroleum based fertilizers (exception organic food) which are slowly destroying fertile land.
This all sounds crazy but unfortunately it is reality. While much of the world is without adequate food supply, the US is both wasting much of its food and spending significant money/energy on foods without calorie content. And all this is being done using farming practices that are destroying our valuable fertile land.
Will this change? Will the US stop wasting so much of its food supply? Will consumers abandon “high tech” food products and return to natural foods? Unfortunately the trends are currently in the wrong direction – per capita food use is growing, food products are quickly gaining market share and farmers are switching to single crop farms. What are your thoughts?
We as consumers must call for a change and ignore the plethora of sexy “get thin quick” food products. Furthermore US agriculture policy needs to change to promote ecologically friendly farming rather than petroleum supported mega corn and soy farms – this is quite difficult because of towering strength of the corn lobby.
Life Cycle Analysis – What’s Your Carbon Footprint?
Posted by: Todd Metheny in Green Living on February 9th, 2009
We have an amazing standard of living in the United States. The way we live is largely driven by our capitalistic economy. Even now, in the midst of a financial crisis, we are an incredibly rich country. I try to live a frugal lifestyle, but I still struggle with the pursuit of goods from time to time. I’m a product of a consumption driven culture. All that consumption produces a lot of waste. My brother-in-law is an engineer that’s very passionate about keeping his energy consumption down. I don’t have his knowledge or dedication to making the world a better place, but some of his fervor has rubbed off on me (to a much lesser degree). I have the desire to be a good citizen. I want to be a part of a clean, sustainable world. The fact of the matter is, living a greener lifestyle can also save you money. I feel like the type of habits you form living a frugal lifestyle reduce what you spend, but they don’t make your life worse in any way. You just change. Living greener is no different. Changing the way you live can make you feel better. I’m not preaching from a high horse here – there are a lot of things I need to do better, too. I’ll try if you’ll try.
There are lots of ways to reduce your carbon footprint. Some of them can save you money. Some of them actually cost more money to implement. When I decided to make this a post, I asked my brother-in-law to compile some resources that would help determine the cost savings of reducing your carbon footprint. This is difficult to pin down. It’s hard to accurately estimate all the costs involved in what you eat, where you live, how much you use, etc. For instance, when you have a beer and don’t recycle the bottle, where do you stop with the costs? Do you consider the cost of the bottle? The reproduction cost of not recycling? The energy cost of shipping? The monetary cost of shipping? The energy cost of bottling? You get the point. Your carbon footprint is an intricate matter. Anyway, access one of the calculators he sent me here.
As you take the test, lots of tips are littered along the way. I encourage you to take the time to read them. Here’s a sampling of the tips - on why we should recycle:
Recycling our wastes has enormous environmental and economic benefits in the form of reduced landfill space, fewer demands for raw materials, less energy consumption, less air and water pollution, lower waste-disposal bills, and cheaper goods. Recycling one metric ton of paper saves 17 trees. It takes 40 – 95% less energy to produce goods with recycled aluminum, glass, plastic, or paper than it does to manufacture them with raw materials. Communities throughout the world are striving for zero-waste economies where the outputs from each resource use are turned into inputs for another use. Zero waste does not aim to simply manage waste, but eliminate its creation in the first place.
Saving 17 trees may not sound like much for a metric ton of paper, but cutting down trees uses a tremendous amount of energy when you think of it. You have to transport heavy equipment to where the trees are, use energy to cut them down, then use more energy to transport them to where they need to go. The heavier something is, the higher the energy cost to transport it. Think about that. Just keeping your golf clubs (insert heavy item here) in your trunk will have a significant adverse affect on the energy it costs to drive your car.
On making things last:
The faster we buy new items, the faster we deplete resources and the more likely it is that we are exceeding the Earth’s regenerative capacity. Unfortunately, today’s economy is designed to convince us to buy often and replace items that are in perfectly good working order. Planned obsolescence – the deliberate manufacturing of products to wear out quickly – adds to the problem. To counter this, we can try to repair things as much as possible and only buy products that are designed to last.
This is one thing that I think I’m pretty good at. I don’t like to buy new things, almost to a fault. I did buy a new car this year, a five year old Camry, but it wasn’t easy for me to do. I try to get the maximum use out of anything I buy as a rule.
On using green products:
Products used to clean floors, carpets, bathrooms, and other building elements often contain harmful chemicals that can have serious human health effects and contaminate water supplies, fish, and wildlife if they are poured down drains, circulated through ventilation systems, or disposed of outdoors. Environmental damage can also occur during the development, manufacture, and transport of these products. Fortunately, biodegradable and non-toxic alternatives can significantly reduce or eliminate these impacts altogether while providing the same level of cleanliness.
These alternatives can be had without increasing your costs that much. This is something my wife and I have talked about and are trying to improve upon.
On greener buildings:
Green buildings significantly reduce demands for energy, water, and materials through ecologically sensitive siting, design, construction, operation, maintenance, and removal practices – the complete building life cycle. Passive solar heating, water efficient fixtures, recycled materials and other green design features can generate up to 30% in energy savings, reduce carbon emissions by 35%, reduce water use by 30 to 50% and save 50 to 90% in waste disposal costs.
Right now we own a small condo, and we really don’t use that much energy based on where we live. When we do have a house, we’re going to go all out to make it as green as possible. Things like solar panels have gotten a lot cheaper over the last few years. Hopefully, the cost will be even lower when we’re ready to make improvements to our next dwelling.
One last one, on water conservation:
Fresh water consumed in households requires energy for both delivery and treatment. Household water use also takes water from other beneficial uses such as irrigation or in-stream flow for fish and wildlife. All of these impacts increase a household’s ecological footprint, so saving water is a key strategy for footprint reduction. It has been estimated that by installing water saving features and adopting water conservation habits such as those listed here, households can easily reduce their water footprint by 60% or more.
Most of these things will save you money, as well as the planet. Obviously, using less water leads to lower water bills. A house with better insulation and solar panels saves on energy costs and consumption. On the other hand, shopping at organic food stores can be expensive. Of course, putting fewer chemicals in your body isn’t just better for the environment, it’s better for your health as well.
For the record, I didn’t do all that well on my ecological footprint quiz. If everyone on the planet lived the way I do, we would need about 3 planet earths. That sounds terrible, but I really do try to live pretty green. I was at less than half of the national average in three of the four areas. I did really poorly in the food category – it’s something I need to work on. I eat a lot of meat, which has higher energy costs than vegetables. I don’t eat enough locally grown foods, either. In any case, I hope seeing your carbon footprint inspires you to try to improve wherever you can – and I hope in the process, you save money as well. Thanks for reading.
This post was inspired by my brother-in-law, R.J. - Thanks buddy.
