My Daily Impact, October 27 - 31, 2011

This is the 32nd posting in this blog.

We have had mixed weather the last few days. There have been some sunny times, some windy times, and some rainy times. Some days like today have been a little bit of each. The rain and clouds really did a number on my solar energy production lately, and I am glad that I have grid power to use when this happens. I have used 5 KWh of grid energy over the last five days, and three of those were on Friday night and Saturday morning. I am still on track to beat my last years' October energy use if all goes well. It is my goal to constantly improve from one year to the next, and for the last two years, that has been the case every month. I must admit that it gets harder every year because the low-hanging fruit of easy energy savings has been picked.

I have been driving the Honda scooter much more lately. I put about 120 miles on it last week. That is only about 1.1 gallons of gas, but I like to use less if possible. I also drove the van to a party in Altamonte Springs with my friend Kenny. This 40 mile trip was respondible for about 36 pounds of CO2, and the Honda made about 22 pounds. I also car pooled with my friend Michael to Christmas for a group hike at the wetlands park there. That trip in his jeep probably made about 50 pounds of CO2.

The emissions from those three tailpipes are not the only things that made impacts this week. My food intake did some damage too. On Thursday evening, we went to O'boy's Bar-B-Que, and I had the pulled pork dinner. There was probably over a pound of the stuff on my plate, and I ate every bit. Sometimes, I just lack discipline! At least the food was served on reusable dished with real utensils. Only the 2 napkins went into the trash.

 Friday night, I had a roast beef sub from subway. It was not a huge amount of meat, but there was the was paper wrapper, the napkin, and the plastic bag. Saturday was the Halloween party. There was a foam plate, a plastic cup, 2 napkins, and plastic utensils. I held back on any protest of this waste because my friends were gracious enough to invite me to an awesome party.

Last night, seven of us went to Pollo Tropical for dinner. The chicken and side items were all good, but the trash was ridiculous. Foam plates, plastic containers, plastic utensils, and plastic cups all over that table which all went into the trash. It is a shame that good, inexpensive food comes at such a cost to our environment.

Today, I sit here writing this blog entry at Panera Bread. So far, I have poured myself two cups of coffer, and used four sugar packets and a plastic knife. The real knives had not come back from the dishwasher, and a plastic one was already on my plate before I could stop it. I will rinse it off, wipe it down, and put it into my computer bag for a second use later.

I want to share my inspirations for writing this blog. I have previously mentioned my friends at Dancing Rabbit Ecovillage who live the most sustainable lives of anyone I know. Click here to go to their website. They are not just trying to save our planet, but they also are some very nice people. I also have to credit a book titled "No Impact Man" by Colin Beavan. This is an interesting and humorous account of a New York City man who tries to make the smallest footprint possible. He also takes his wife and child along for the ride. This book taught me a lot about how the choices I make can influence the footprint I make.

I recommend taking this book for a read. I really recommend the audio book because the author's enthusiasm really comes through.

Daily Impact: August 12, 2011

This is the forth post in my blog.

Yesterday's grid power use was 18 KWh. This was about normal for a day with a high temperature of 95 degrees. I also used about 0.35 gallons of gas going up to my friend Royce's house. Riding the Honda was the most efficient way I could go there because the round trip was 41 miles, and the electric scooter would not make it. We had fun swimming in his nice, cool pool. It was truely refreshing.

I bought some goodies for us to munch on while there: dried cranberries, yogurt-covered raisins, and some fruit punch. I am not sure of the origin of any of these items, and this will warrent further research. The packaging was plastic for the food (will go into the trash), and an aceptic container for the punch (which will be recycled). I enjoyed the swim, the company, and the ride despite the 7 pounds of carbon dioxide produced by the scooter (0.35 gallons x 20 pounds per gallon).

Later yesterday evening, I met with some friends, and had dinner. I had two slices of pizza, and used two plates, a knife and a fork which had to be washed. I also used a paper napkin and a paper towel from the bathroom. I must say that the electric hand driers (especially the new jet-air type) save a lot of paper without using too much electricity. The round trip of twenty miles to dinner was on the electric scooter. Most of the charging was included in the 18 KWh at home, but about 150 watt-hours was from an outside source.

Laundry Day

This morning, I washed my sheets. I do this every 7-10 days. This time it had been 10 days, and my sheets were still OK. I do make sure that I am clean when I go to bed, so there is not much stank ot build up. We have been blessed with a lot of rain lately, so the water in my rain barrels is plentiful and clean. This clean rain water makes for great wash water in the machine, but I still use municipal water for the rince. This means a savings of about 18 gallons in my 1986 model Kennmore.

Sheets are perfect for the clothes line. They are easy to hang, they smell and feel great after they dry, and using the line instead of the dryer saves about 3 KWh of electricity. The clothesline is the most cost effective energy saving device I have installed at my house.

This morning, I got up, walked Astro, had some OJ and cereal, and rode the e-scooter to Panera. Today, I got a bagel. The bagel came on a plastic plate (must be washed) with a plastic fork (which I will wash and reuse), a napkin (trash), and two butters (plastic containers, trash). I brought my own coffee mug, and I guess I will start bringing my own knife from now on. Get ready Panera servers, here comes the guy who just wants the bagel on a plate with no napkin or knofe; what a weird-o!

I have now become that guy who comes into the restaurant with his own utensils and to-go boxes! Look-out its the crazy green guy again! Don't let him catch you throwing away a perfectly good napkin!

What The Heck Made Me Start This Blog?

I am a mad scientist. Actually, I enjoy collecting data, and taking steps to improve the numbers. Years ago, I watched a program called "Thirty Days". This program was part of a series created by Morgan Spurlock. The premice of the series was to take a person (or people) from the comfort of their normal life, and insert them into a new environment. The particular episode I saw took two people from New York City, and placed them into an ecovillage called Dancing Rabbit.

Dancing Rabbit is a community of about fifty people who live their lives in the most sustainable way possible. The only connection to "the grid" is a phone line for DSL internet. They grow most all of their own food, they live in housed made of straw bales and clay (along with some other materials), and share three vehicles among themselves (which they use very sparingly). Any electricity they use comes from the sun or the wind, and they utilize locally-grown wood for heat in the cold Missouri winters. Water comes from the sky, and is stored in cisterns  and their poop gets recycled into natural fertilizer (a process which is time-consuming and labor-intensive to remove harmful bacteria).

Three years ago, I had the privelige of visiting these champions of the environment, and I found them to be some of the nicest, down-to-earth people whom I have ever met. They also have great attitudes, even when the relentless rain turns their pathes into straems of mud! I almost considered trying to become part of their community, but Northeast Missouri is a little too much of a change from central Florida.

If you have a curiocity about this village, subscribe to their weekly newsletter. You can subscribe by visiting WWW.Dancingrabbit.ORG, and signing up. I always enjoy seeing a message from them in my indox, and I hope you do too.