Green Living Challenge #8: Organic Lunch Leads to the Finish Line!

Today is your final day to complete the 2007 Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Green Living Challenge! There's now an online entry form available.

I just realized I can grab my last 10 points for something I hadn't even been consciously doing:

Eat a locally grown, organic, and/or meatless ingredient meal twice a week.

I love cooking for family and friends, but I hate cooking for myself. Any lunch or dinner I make for just me usually involves no more than five minutes of prep time before going in the oven or going on my plate. Usually, that meant salads were out. Washing the lettuce, chopping the tomatoes ... way too much work.

Then this summer, I made a startling discovery: It takes just as much time to make one salad as it does three salads. OK, so it seems obvious, but I hadn't exactly spent sleepless nights crunching the numbers on salad prep. I've been making three salads on Sunday and bringing one to work each day for lunch.

And thanks to my local Harris Teeter, the salads are organic. They have a great selection of organic produce at prices that are comparable to their pesticidal (is that a word?) counterparts. I'd been thinking to fill this requirement I had to get free-range tofu from my local farmers market, but it was a lot easier than I'd thought.

There's more and more evidence that organic foods aren't just better for the environment. They may be healthier for humans as well, and not just because they don't contain pesticides. A new study (so new it hasn't been peer reviewed) says organic foods may contain more nutrients than conventionally-grown food.

If you're just starting the switch to organics, where can you get the most bang for your buck? The New York Times blog recently listed five of the foods that can make the biggest impact.

Points for this action: 10
Total points to date: 100
Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Green Living Challenge #7: Making the Move to CFLs

The Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Green Living Challenge deadline is coming up tomorrow, but I can grab another 5 points for something that's already been saving me money:

Change the most frequently used light bulbs in your residence to compact fluorescent (up to 5 bulbs with one point per bulb).

Switching to CFLs is one of several things I did this spring that helped cut my power bill by 10%. While CFLs won't stop global warming by themselves, they can help reduce our national power usage, hence our greenhouse gas emissions.

CFLs do contain a small amount of mercury, so they need to be recycled. But CFLs actually involve less total mercury use than incandescent bulbs. Why? Because the majority of our national power comes from coal. The coal burned to provide the extra juice incandescents require will actually put more mercury into the atmosphere than is contained in a CFL. This graph explains it best.

Even though they'll save you up to $30 on your power bill over a 10-year lifespan, CFLs can still be shockingly hard to find. The Harris Teeter near me on Glebe Road doesn't stock even one CFL. Even when the return on investment is so immediate and enormous, old habits can be hard to break.

Should American ban incandescents like Australia recently did? I think so. Consumers save money, we slightly ease demand on our national power grid, and we slightly cut our national greenhouse gas emissions. What would be the downside?

Points for this action: 5
Total points to date: 90
Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Green Living Challenge #6: Greening My Power, Cutting My Carbon Footprint

With the Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Green Living Challenge deadline coming up on October 31st, it's time to finish my push to 100 points. Fortunately, I can pick up another 10 points for something I did over the summer:

Buy renewable energy credits (e.g. wind power) equivalent to at least 50% of your electricity usage.

I've switched my power source from Dominion's standard mix of mostly coal-fired and nuclear power to green power, though it was more expensive and a long process. I'd much rather switch my power source directly to green power than to still use coal/nuclear with credits. With the latter, you're not directly reducing your carbon footprint, you're just trying to offset it, a questionable practice.

Wikipedia can give you a quick overview of green power. You can also track my progress in completing the Green Living Challenge.

Points for this action: 10
Total points to date: 85
Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Wednesday: ACE Green Living Challenge Finish Line Party!

Here's a little last-minute help to complete the Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Green Living Challenge:

Green Living Challenge Finish Line Party
Wednesday, October 24, 7-9pm
Busboys and Poets
4251 S. Campbell Ave, Shirlington

Bring your completed Green Living Challenge entry form (deadline October 31), or drop in for some inspiration to finish. We’ll have light refreshments and green living giveaways for everyone who comes by. For more information, call 703-228-6406 or email volunteer@arlingtonenvironment.org.

The Green Miles still has 25 points to go before completing the Challenge. I'll get working now to get the form completed in time to turn in tomorrow night. Hope to see you there!

Green Living Challenge #5: Recycling

I live at Ballston Park, which prides itself on being a green, sprawling, 60-acre garden-style apartment complex.

Unfortunately, Ballston Park has chosen to put just four recycling locations on those 60 acres -- not even one at every trash Dumpster -- and none are within a block of my apartment. It makes my next task in the Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment Green Living Challenge pretty annoying:

Recycle all bottles, cans, and mixed paper accepted in your recycling program at least three times a month.

If I lived in a single-family home, I'd be able to put my recycling out on the curb. But like thousands of other apartment and condo residents in Arlington, I'm at the mercy of my building's management.

Luckily for me, I'm a block away from one of Arlington's two recycling centers. I can drop off:

- Mixed paper (includes stuff like cereal boxes, but excludes waxed boxes, i.e. milk cartons)

- Flattened corrugated cardboard boxes

- Scrap metal (don't use that one very often)

- Bottles and cans and just clap your hands and just clap your hands

Plastics are a common point of confusion. You can only recycle bottles with narrow necks that have a 1 or 2 in the little recycling symbol on the bottom of the bottle. That's mostly beverage containers. You can't recycle yogurt cups, margarine tubs, plastic peanut butter jars, etc. Arlington County's Department of Environmental Services has told me those items aren't as cost-effective to recycle.

While many hardcore recyclers are understandably upset about that, I'm much more concerned about how hard it is to recycle at all if you live in an apartment or condo. Arlington County tried to change the rules last year, but waste haulers flexed their muscle in Richmond and blocked the effort.

There is also very little recycling done in Arlington's bars and restaurants, but not many customers think about that. Once I was at Front Page with a fellow environmentalist and told her that all things being equal, I try to stick to draft beer because bars and restaurants don't recycle empty beer bottles. She didn't believe me. I told her to ask the bartender, so she did, and was shocked when he told her the bottles went in the trash.

If you'd like your favorite bar or restaurant to recycle, ask to speak to a manager the next time you're there. Ask if they recycle. Ask why not. Ask if they know how much more it would cost to recycle. I'm betting that, much like the aforementioned customers, they just haven't thought about it, and a simple inquiry from a customer might get them thinking about it.

You can get more information about recycling at Arlington County's website! You can also track my progress in completing the Green Living Challenge here.

Points for this action: 15
Total points to date: 75
Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Green Living Challenge #4: Driving Sucks.

I was going to come up with some flowery title like, "Why I Wouldn't Drive to Work Even If They Let Me Park for Free," which is true, but why say all that when you can sum it up in two words:

Driving sucks.

Which is why my fourth task in the Green Living Challenge was easy:

Don’t drive one day a week (use public transportation, bike, carpool, or telecommute)

I already Metro to work every day and 90% of the time it's smooth as silk. There are infrequent days when there are delays and trains are crowded, but then again, if I was driving there would be backups a lot more than 10% of the time.

Just this morning, I got a reminder of what life would be like if I drove to work every day. I'm heading up to Pennsylvania right after work to visit a friend, so The Green Girlfriend, a coworker, and I carpooled from Ballston to McPherson Square. After slogging through the rain-slowed traffic to the point of a simmering low-level road rage, we found a parking lot under my office building. There we were greeted by the Parking Nazi, an attendant who demanded I re-park my car three times to within inches of his specifications, a problem that was exacerbated because he:

1) Didn't give instructions or speak English very well
2) Insisted he gave clear instructions and spoke perfectly fine English and it was all three of us who couldn't understand him

So I went to another parking lot and ended up 5 minutes late for work. Needless to say, I won't be giving up my SmarTrip card anytime soon.

And why would I? My commute only takes 30 minutes door-to-door, including a walk through Oakland Park past some blossoming trees. I've read more books in the last year of Metroing than I had in the previous five years (which is sorta sad but true). I'm guaranteed exercise every day, with 20 minutes of walking round-trip. And since we both go to work at the same time, I'm also guaranteed daily time with The Green Girlfriend.

Points for this action: 15
Total points to date: 60
Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Does the Planet Only Need Our Pity?

If you believe an article on WashingtonPost.com last week, "It Isn't Easy Being Green," all you need to do to be green is ... nothing.

That's right, you don't need to do lift a finger! You just have to feel bad about global warming, and you're an instant environmentalist, doing your part to save the planet from the comfort of your SUV.

Jill Hudson Neal calls herself a "green mom" and writes how An Inconvenient Truth left her guilt-ridden about global warming and her impact on the planet. Yet she methodically dismisses ways she could reduce her environmental footprint, saying, "I'm essentially too lazy and cheap to walk the path of a truly committed environmentalist."

But Hudson Neal's self-analysis stops short of truth. Living green is neither difficult nor expensive. What is hard is to admit that it's not suburban sprawl or grocery store prices that are keeping you from helping the planet, but your own refusal to make the leap from sympathy to support.

And hey, not all of us can support every cause. There are plenty of issues that all of us are sympathetic to that most of us don't actively support. Save Darfur or global poverty are among them. While we all feel they're terrible problems, most of us don't give our money or time.

That's what makes going green so simple -- it doesn't require major investments of cash or sweat. And that's what makes the article so frustrating -- Hudson Neal's eagerness to dismiss green options that don't fit her grim outlook:

* No matter how cheap you claim to be, reducing, reusing, and recycling are better than free -- the first two can actually save money. But the green trinity are barely even mentioned.

* She derides compact fluorescent light bulbs as "twice the price" of old incandescent bulbs. True, but a typical CFL will save you $30 (ten times the cost of the bulb) in energy costs over its lifetime! Multiply that by dozens of bulbs in a typical house, and you're looking at serious savings.

* She writes, "Trading in our family's SUV for a hybrid car and riding a bike to the grocery store are compelling thoughts, but neither is going to happen." Who says you have to do either? Living green isn't about sacrifice and self-denial, it's about making smart choices. If you're buying an SUV, choose a Ford Escape Hybrid that gets 40 city miles to the gallon. If you need to hit the grocery store, save on gas by stopping on the way home from work instead of making a separate trip.

In fact, Hudson Neal doesn't list a single thing she does do to be green. The only step she'll even consider is switching to organic bananas and milk. While that's certainly a healthy choice, saying the purchase of organic bananas and milk makes you an environmentalist is like saying standard food buyers are pesticide-loving Earth-haters. It's just one pixel of a much bigger picture.

Strangely, Hudson Neal admits she's fine with being the shade of green that, as Kermit the Frog himself put it, blends in with so many ordinary things. "If I picked apart every lifestyle choice my family made in the past few years, there'd be a long non-green list with which to contend, though probably not too different from the average American clan."

This sympathetic complacency won't solve global warming. What will? Reducing the environmental impact of yourself, the businesses you work for and patronize, and the governments that your tax dollars support.

That's why Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment created the Green Living Challenge, to show that smart, sustainable choices and a low-cost, small, simple steps can add up to make a major change in your environmental impact without making major changes in your lifestyle.

In the face of a problem as daunting as climate change, CFLs, car sharing, and reusable coffee mugs may not seem like powerful weapons. But if every American took up the fight, they'd be the tools of revolution. Will Hudson Neal and others like her answer the call to arms, or continue to be comfortable with complaining?

Green Living Challenge #3: Petrochemicals in Your Coffee Cup

Since I posted about reduce/reuse/recycle yesterday, I thought I'd keep with that theme and chalk up another 5 points in Arlingtonians for a Clean Environment's Green Living Challenge ...

Use a reusable mug when purchasing coffee or tea

From EcoCupInfo.com:

Every year, Americans drink more than 100 billion cups of coffee. Of those, 14.4 billion are served in disposable paper cups— enough to wrap the earth 55 times if placed end-to-end! Those paper cups contain a plastic lining made from a petrochemical that would produce enough energy to heat 8,300 homes. That’s a town the size of Newtown, Connecticut.

I'm willing to bet that if they were called petrochemical cups instead of paper cups, a lot more people would bring their own travel mugs. I've always had a travel mug or two in the cabinet, but I usually only break them out when I'm bringing a big cup of coffee at the start of a long drive.

Part of the reason this hasn't registered with me until now is that I rarely buy brewed coffee. I have a coffee-maker at work, and I'm religious about making it there, bringing in cream and sugar, etc. Not to get all coffeenerdness, but I've always preferred a strong cup of drip coffee to a cappuccino/latte/whatever anyway, and when the lattes are $4 compared with $10 for an entire pound of coffee beans, it's an easy choice.

But I watch co-workers go out for coffee several times a day, coming back with a new, white, bleached paper cup every time. Is coffee really that hard to wash off of a cup? There's even a dishwasher in the office! Keep a couple of travel mugs handy and you'll never have to lift a sponge!

OK, I suppose ranting won't win any converts, but here's something that might. The Daily Grind location at N. Quincy and N. Fairfax in Ballston is offering special Green Living Challenge travel mugs. At $10, they're cheaper than Starbucks travel mugs, and Daily Grind will give you refills for just $1. Get it refilled every day for two weeks and you've made your money back.

So now I have the tools (shiny new travel mug), the motivation (of completing the challenge), and the desire (Daily Grind makes a nice strong Guatemalan) to complete another step of the challenge! You can track my progress here.

Points for this action: 5

Total points to date: 45

Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Green Living Challenge #2: You're Pre-Approved to Read This Blog!

I've been providing updates on my progress towards completing ACE's Green Living Challenge. This stage of the Challenge took me less than 10 minutes to complete:

Register with the Direct Marketing Association’s Mail Preference Service to reduce your junk mail.

According to 50 Simple Things You Can Do To Save The Earth:

* Each year, 100 million trees are used to produce junk mail.
* 250,000 homes could be heated with one day's supply of junk mail.
* Americans receive almost 4 million tons of junk mail every year.
* The yearly production and disposal of junk mail consumes more energy than 2.8 million cars.

There are actually at least two options for fulfilling this aspect of the challenge. The first is the Direct Marketing Association's Mail Preference Service (MPS). For a fee of $1, the MPS will put you on a "do not mail" list that DMA members must follow.

The second option is to sign up with a pay service that will selectively scrub you from certain lists while allowing other mail through. For instance, there's an organization called Green Dimes that says it will block your junk mail while allowing through the catalogues you want. Green Dimes will also plant one tree a month while you're a paying member. However, it comes at a relatively steep price -- $36 a year.

Me? I just went with MPS, the cheaper option. But if you're a Green Dimes fan, please post a comment to make your case on why it's worthwhile!

Points for this action: 5
Total points to date: 40
Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

Green Living Challenge, Part I: The Adventure Begins

For those of you who enjoy bad movies, the title of this blog refers to the disastrous Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins, which killed several careers and left Joel Grey seriously wounded. My favorite part was Remo spending the entire movie strengthening his fingers so he could spend two seconds breaking this dude's gas mask. You also have to love that they were so confident the movie would spawn sequels they titled it The Adventure Begins. And if all that doesn't get you, there's the twirling.

Over the next couple of months, I'll be providing updates on my progress towards completing ACE's Green Living Challenge. I'll start with the biggest chunk of points possible:

Live in a multi-family apartment or condominium unit (bonus for promoting denser residential areas)

Simply put, living in a multi-family dwelling vastly reduces your environmental footprint. Instead of 30 driveways, we have one parking lot. Instead of 30 lawns crying out for fertilizer, we have one. Instead of 30 impermeable roofs sending runoff into our streams, we have one. Instead of being spread out over miles of sprawl, pushing units further from businesses and public transportation, I can walk to Ballston or Virginia Square Metro stations in 10 minutes, or walk to Clarendon in 30 minutes.

Points for this action: 35

Total points to date: 35

Points needed to complete Green Living Challenge: 100

The Best Way You Can Help the Environment: Change the System

At last weekend's Arlington County Fair, several people came up to the ACE booth and asked the best way they could help improve Arlington's environment.

For me, that's always a tough question to answer. People want simple solutions, like "If your office doesn't recycle, take your empty containers home and recycle them yourself." It's easy and doesn't force anyone out of their comfort zone. If you try to challenge them to take the next step, like "Go to your facility manager and ask why your office doesn't recycle," they're often reluctant.

As helpful as it is for you to change your behavior, you can do exponentially more good by changing the system. Buying a hybrid car is good, but getting your company to change its fleet to hybrids makes a lasting impact on our air quality. Installing a rain barrel is good; organizing people in your civic association to install rain barrels can save a stream. Buying organic beer & wine is good; getting your favorite restaurant to carry organic beer exposes hundreds of people to green products.

Here are more ways to help the environment at home, on the road, and in your community!