June 2009 - Posts
My wife works at a retail store where a great deal of cardboard and paper accumulate. A few years ago the owner of the store along with other nearby businesses paid to have their recycling collected. It was a fairly expensive service for a small business, yet the collector still had difficulty making sufficient profit and eventually the whole arrangement came to an end. Since then the cardboard and paper accumulates in the store's basement until a staff member can haul it away.
I often drive my wife home from work. Usually I have an empty back seat and trunk. There is a recycling depot between the store and our house...hmmm.
I have offered to take the occasional carload of recycling away and in exchange for discounts for products I buy at the store. I am saving money on purchases I would have made anyway, so this is a perfect win-win arrangement. The store gets it's recycling done at a fraction of the cost it used to pay and I am saving money.
Presently, the opportunity exists to co-ordinate recycling among apartment dwellers and others who live in multi-residence buildings as well as with businesses. If you can find a way to assist others with their recycling, you will probably find that they are more than happy to do something in return. Of course monetary gain should not be the primary motivation to do environmentally friendly actions. However, if you can come to an arrangement that ends up saving you money then why the heck not do it? Even if you can't barter a deal for yourself, helping to coordinate recycling with nearby residents or businesses is a great way to help re-connect with your community and creates goodwill which always pays off in the end.
New Savings:
PAY ME TO RECYCLE!: $9.60
BONUS BOTTLES: $0.30. I don't rumage through trash cans looking for bottles and cans, I leave that to the professionals. However if I'm just walking down the street and see a beverage container littering my beautiful city, then I'll gladly add it to my next trip to the bottle depot.
BAG THE SAVINGS: $1.15
PROJECT UNPLUG (MAY): $10.50
Total savings to date: $32.95
“The significant problems we face today cannot be solved by the same level of consciousness that created them.”
~ Albert Einstein
The light bulb went on many years ago, but it has taken years -- and a brilliant book -- to reflick that switch in my brain. In grade seven I learned about aerodynamics, and the fact that bird flight helped inspire the invention of airplanes. And I remember thinking, "What else could we learn from nature? What can plants and animals teach us about existing better in this world?"
As it turns out, they can teach us lots. American scientist and self-proclaimed nature nerd, Janine Benyus, has written six books on nature, including a thoughtful look at biomimicry (from bios, meaning life, and mimesis, meaning to imitate). Benyus tackles the major design problems facing humanity in the twenty-first century, from how we will feed ourselves and harness energy to how we will manufacture goods and conduct business from a whole (eco) system perspective. And nature is the model. We learn from Benyus' book that when compared ounce for ounce, one strand of spider's silk has five times the strength of steel. That the inspiration for velcro came from burrs. How do we produce energy? By mimicking the principles of photosynthesis. And so on.
Once we see nature as a source of inspiration, our relationship with the living world changes. We realize that the only way to keep learning from nature is to safeguard it; to treasure this source of brilliant ideas.
Increasingly we are realizing we need to move away from the Cartesian, linear, thinking that has shaped our city and modern society. True, this model of thinking inspired the Industrial Revolution, with benefits like central heating and computers. But it has also resulted in over-flowing landfills and pollution. We need a new model of thinking where we see the world as a system, a cyclical system of interconnections -- a web of connections.
The last time humanity was challenged to rethink the world, we came up with the Enlightenment, which has served us well for centuries. But now we are at the center of a new revolution where intellectual pursuits become as important as financial and entertainment pursuits; where an ethical compass and a new regard for nature are essential. How exciting is that?
Biomimicry : innovation inspired by nature by Benyus, Janine M.
This article is written by guest blogger, Jocelyn, another Calgary Public Library staff member who is passionate about the environment:
Ok, I admit it. I am terrified of bees. I think that irrational fear stems in part from an episode of my life where I was wearing a floral dress, and a bumble bee would not stop following me and trying to land and burrow in the fabric flowers! While I hate the idea of a bee landing on me and trying to pollinate me (as well as being potentially stung), I had to face this fear outright when we had a nest of what turned out to be leaf cutter bees underneath our doorstep…
Most people might stop at this point and say: why didn’t you kill them? Aside from using harmful pesticides, there is another reason why we decided to leave them be (pun intended): bees in the world are disappearing, and fast.
Is there a way to change our attitudes toward these critters (even when we are terrified of them?) I have noticed that many people not only share my irrational fear of bees, some also: 1) believe wasps and bees are the same thing and 2) believe that a lot of the bees they see are killer bees thanks to the 15 second clips they might see from the media!
Yet, bees are beneficial pollinators to us: one third of what we eat depends on them as pollinators – this includes both the honey bees we have introduced into our agricultural practices from Europe and our native bees. Both our introduced and wild bee populations are in also in decline, which is not good news. According to the David Suzuki Foundation, this decline is due in part to habitat loss, such as the conversion of natural areas to subdivisions, big-box stores, sterile lawns, as well as pesticide use. Factor in colony collapse disorder, and you know that the bees are in big trouble.
So what can we do to help?
Plant a bee friendly garden: “Bees are attracted to flowers that are colorful or contrast well with their background, or have an ultraviolet coloration that serves as a nectar guide,” according to www.bees-online.com. According to NatureScape Alberta, bees generally love blue, purple and yellow flowers, although many garden cultivars have been bred to the point where they can lack the essential pollen and nectar that bees need. Avoiding double petal varieties and choosing native flower species such as Monarda and Gaillardia will be more helpful to the bees in your neighborhood, as will planting annuals in your garden such as sunflowers.
Resources:
Ideas for bee friendly plants and gardens can be found on the following websites:
http://www.bees-online.com/BeeFriendlyGarden.htm
http://nature.berkeley.edu/urbanbeegardens/general_why.html
http://www.xerces.org/bees/
The David Suzuki Foundation (www.davidsuzuki.org ) has an entire downloadable section about bees and other beneficial pollinators called Pollinators: what’s the buzz?: http://www.davidsuzuki.org/files/SWAG/Species/Pollinators_fact_sheet.pdf
A British website dedicated to the conservation of bumble bees (www.bumblebee.org ) has compiled a list of bee friendly flowers to plant in North America as well as helpful tips on how to build bumble bee boxes and make your space outside more bee friendly: http://www.bumblebee.org/FlowerlistUS.htm
And check out this book at the library:
NatureScape Alberta : creating and caring for wildlife habitat at home
by Myrna Pearman and Ted Pike
Red Deer : Red Deer River Naturalists, c2000
639. 92097123 PEA
Please cross reference some of the plants on the lists with ones on the Alberta Invasive Plants Council webpage as well: http://www.invasiveplants.ab.ca. I know I have avoided planting a few invasive species this way, as I plant my bee friendly garden just slightly away from my door (where the bees are the most welcome!)
I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be glad to spot a regular stretch limo guzzling fuel on the street. However in an age of stretch SUVs and buses people can stand up and dance in, the sight of a regular, old fashioned stretch limo is refreshing and almost…modest.
I feel the same way about tiny houses. After the excess of the 80’s and 90’s when everything became supersized, including houses, tiny houses seem like a breath of fresh air.
Jay Shafer, founder of the Tumbleweed Tiny House Company, is an avid tiny house enthusiast. Since 1997 he’s lived in houses smaller than 100 square feet. While he admits that 100 square feet is too small for most people, he strives to be “a living example encouraging people to downsize, even if it’s only to a moderately smaller home.”
Tiny houses have obvious environmental benefits: fewer greenhouse gases get churned out, fewer materials go into them, and you can’t keep purchasing the newest of everything when you have nowhere to put it. Tiny houses encourage simple living in a big way.
They also have big cost benefits: you save on constructing or purchasing your house, you save on monthly heating bills and on filling your home with furniture. Some of those savings can go into constructing a home with high quality materials that are healthier and have less environmental impact.
Some cities have restrictions on how small you can build a house. In the spirit of NIMBY, homeowners in some communities don’t want a tiny house to appear next door because they fear it will lower their house price by making the neighborhood look less affluent. Jay Shafer got around this roadblock by purchasing a regular house on a regular lot, renting it out, and placing his tiny house in the backyard.
Shafer’s tiniest house, appropriately called "XS House," is a lean $36,997(US)—less than many cars (and only somewhat bigger than some vehicles). But the freedom afforded by $6 monthly heating costs, no mortgage, and negligible time spent cleaning might just be worth it.
For more information on tiny house design and living check out these books:
Little House on a Small Planet: Simple Homes, Cosy Retreats and Energy Efficient Possiblities by Shay Salomon
The Not So Big House: A Blueprint for the Way We Really Live by Sarah Susanka
The Magic of Small Spaces by Lucrecia Alvarez
A few weeks ago I took part in a unique gardening project. Volunteers with the Calgary Food Policy Council (CFPC) and other individuals like myself met downtown on the corner of 6th Ave and 3rd Street SW and proceeded to plant a vegetable garden in the flower beds.
What would have been space for ornamental flowers instead became space for food: squash, carrots, lettuce, beets, beans and more. Once the seeds we planted grow into hearty produce the CFPC will take it to the food bank, so their patrons can enjoy fresh, local produce, produced right in the heart of the city.
The project is a partnership between Downtown Calgary, the Calgary Food Policy Council, Sunnyside Home and Garden Centre, the City of Calgary and the Calgary Inter-Faith Food Bank. The Downtown Community Garden is hopefully a sign of more gardens to come in Calgary. Paul Hughes, Director of the CFPC would like to see 2,011 new gardens in Calgary by 2011. To some that sounds like an overly ambitious goal, but when you think that 2000 people is equivalent to 0.2% of Calgarians it doesn’t seem so unattainable.
Why are community gardens important?
Community gardens:
ü allow people control over some of their food supply, so they’re not at the mercy of inflating food prices
ü provide fresh food that’s good for you, and great physical activity
ü provide local food and eliminate the environmental costs associated with shipping and refrigerating food
ü re-connect us with our environment
ü promote social interactions and community connections
ü can turn an unsafe or unsightly abandoned lots into a beautiful plot of land
For more information on community gardens contact the Calgary Food Policy Council, the Calgary Horticultural Society, the City of Calgary, or join the Calgary Community Gardens Meet-Up Group.
One morning a few weeks ago I woke at the same time I normally do, poured myself a coffee like I normally do, sat down in the living room like I normally do, hit the power button on the T.V. remote like I normally do…and nothing happened. My sleep-befuddled brain took a few seconds to recall that the previous night I had unplugged the television, stereo and Playstation. The idea is that appliances continue to draw energy even when they are not running and I had resolved to reduce my energy consumption. I was feeling pretty good about my new eco-righteous self as I took a long sip of coffee and pressed the power button again. Still nothing...oh yeah. I picked up a book read a few pages stopping every two or three minutes to discover the remote in my hand, my thumb repeatedly pumping the power button. After trying to turn on the T.V. for the sixth time, it dawned on me just how deeply my energy consuming habits have become. I can only hope the excerise of recording my “eco-savings” will spur me into breaking old habits and developing new ones.
In addition to unplugging appliances when they are not in use, my wife and I have revived our old habit of hanging the laundry on the line to dry.
Probably the greatest savings we will achieve will come from our unplugging the big deep-freeze in the basement. The freezer came with the house and at first we really thought we would put it to good use but in reality we have never put more than a half dozen items in it. For years now it has sat there drawing energy day and night.
So now I am actually anxious to get my next utility bill to see how much I am being charged per kilowatt hour so I can calculate my savings.
Anybody want to buy a freezer?
PROJECT UNPLUG: My first step down the path to eco-riches is to attack my energy bill. It is important to measure my savings as accurately as possible and this is where a Kill-a-Watt meter comes in handy. These devices can be checked out from Calgary Public Library and help you accurately measure how much energy various appliances are sucking out of the grid and money they are sucking out of your bank account. So far I have measured several appliances and am faithfully recording how many kilowatt hours my wife and I save doing energy-free things. See future blog postings to see how killowat savings translate into money savings.
Please allow me to introduce myself: I am the EcoMiser. 
I love the planet and I love money. I love a great many other things as well, but for now these are the only two of my passions you need to know about: saving the planet and saving moolah. I'm all about green.
My motto is “A penny saved is better than a penny earned." For one thing, you don’t pay taxes on the money you save while the government takes 15% or more of earnings. More importantly there is an ecological cost to commerce—goods use energy to be produced, packaged, shipped, stored, displayed and sold. So reducing consumption is good for the pocketbook and the earth.
By measuring the amount of money I can save (and possibly generate) doing things that are eco-positive, I hope I can inspire the EcoMiser that dwells in your heart as well. I also invite anyone and everyone to share their own money saving eco-tips that might help me save some dough. Let’s pool our collective resources toward the goal of increasing my wealth!
New Savings:
BAG THE SAVINGS: Here is an easy one. Many places, mainly grocery stores but increasingly other retailers as well, now charge for plastic bags. One independent grocer in town is charging 25 cents per plastic bag! I’m sorry but that’s a quarter that could go to paying down my mortgage. I believe there is some kind of environmental reason for not using cheap plastic bags as well.
SAVED $1.40
PAY ME TO RECYCLE!: Sounds good doesn’t it? In a future blog and I’ll explain how I am actually saving money by doing recycling...and maybe you can too!
SAVED $10.00
Total savings to date: $11.40