Oops

Sometimes carelessness is the mother of consumption. Usually I focus my gardening efforts on clearing the weeds around my wildflowers or watering my broccoli seedlings, but this week I've been trying to conform to the expectations of my suburban neighbors by mowing my lawn. I've never used a lawnmower myself, since I'm generally allergic to grass; but I gave it a try and all was going well until suddenly it stopped. I had run the mower over the cord and cut it in two. Fortunately, it just needs a standard outdoor extension cord, not some specialized part that they decide to discontinue in order to force you to replace the whole thing. So today, dear husband brought home a brand new extension cord. Alas, purchases sometimes happen despite my best intensions.

Business clothes and printer cartridges

I made it through both the business trip and printing my taxes without buying "new" stuff.

I went to Cartridge World and got the printer cartridge re-filled for about half the price of buying a new one. The IRS prefers that people file electronically, but most people have to pay extra to e-file. Therefore, I fill out the PDF-based forms on the IRS web-site, print them out, and send them to the IRS where they pay somebody to type the information into their computers. What a waste of paper, time and money.

I managed not to buy any new business clothes either. I noticed before the trip that the VP that I would be traveling with also uses a laptop backpack, so no need to feel self-conscious about that. We would have two days of meetings with the client so I packed the two shirts I own that I feel confident are sufficiently professional (button-down long-sleeved shirts with real collars) and one spare shirt (more causal but good enough for work). Dressing for the first day was no problem. However, in ironing my shirts I discovered that the second collared shirt had a spot on it right in the middle near the buttons. I knew from the first day of meetings that we would be meeting with some of the same people the second day and that people at the client company dress more formally than at our company. So I didn't want to wear the same shirt and the more casual shirt wouldn't be appropriate. I considered buying a new shirt for the second day. I almost justified it by thinking that having only one shirt that I can wear to meet with customers isn't going to work, so I would need to buy another one at some point anyhow. However, if I waited until I got home, I could get one at a re-sale store. If I bought a shirt on short notice I would almost certainly need to buy new. Fortunately, I also had a white cardigan sweater with me and it had been quite cold in the meeting room. I decided that I would wear the shirt with the spot with the sweater over it and I would keep the sweater buttoned. I did this with no problem.

A week later I had a local meeting with a different client. I wore the un-spotted collared shirt, but I noticed a very small spot on it, unlikely to be noticed by anybody else. I had the sweater with me, but it was too hot to wear it. The clip-on visitor badge they gave me to wear covered it up very well. Now that I'm back home I can look for some new-to-me business shirts at a re-sale store, when I find the time.

Too dependent on technology

Our inkjet printer cartridge is out of ink. Yesterday, when my husband and I were in the city we tried to get it re-filled. We went to a Walgreen's that, according to their website re-fills inkjet cartridges. They did have a machine to re-fill cartridges, but after at least 10 minutes, they decided they it couldn't handle ours (an HP #26). We tried a Comp USA about a block away, but the woman at the information desk said that they don't re-fill cartridges or sell re-furbished ones. When I get back from my business trip, I'll try Cartridge World. Hopefully, they can re-fill it.

In the meantime, I have a one-page letter that I need to send. I typed it on my laptop and since I couldn't print it at home, I printed it at the office. Tonight, I tried to prepare it for the mail, but I couldn't find it. I looked around the house for it and I started getting worried. I thought about whether I could wait until after my trip to send it. It took about 15 minutes of searching before the thought occurred to me that I could write the letter by hand.

It’s funny how we forget the basics sometimes. Fortunately I have very readable hand-writing.

Business travel worries

I joined the Compact in January. The Compact is a group of people who have pledged not to buy any new stuff for some period of time (often a year, though many continue beyond that). So far, not shopping has been pretty easy. I was never very interested in shopping anyhow.

A few days ago, I found out I'm going to be going on a business trip to the Midwestern city were I went to college. This brought on a whole bunch of worries. How many days of meetings would there be? Do I have enough different sets of sufficiently professional clothing? Is my laptop backpack sufficiently professional and adult looking? What about a purse, stockings etc? I work in Silicon Valley, so work attire is informal. Even my boss, a senior VP, often wears jeans to work. I carry my laptop, wallet etc. in a very handy backpack that I bought before I started Compacting. Will that be OK? I don't want to look like a college student in front of a potential client. I'd also like to avoid buying (or wearing) nylon stockings. Nylons are such a waste since they often develop runs after having been worn only a few times. I usually wear white gym socks, but certainly that won't work for these meetings. I remember buying some black trouser socks last year. I guess I'll need to clean my house and find them before the trip. Any thoughts about carrying my stuff to the meetings? Should I use the backpack or hit the thrift stores and try to find something more "professional"?

The other thing that bothers me about travel is the CO2 emissions associated with air travel. According to Native Energy my plane trip will cause 1.395 tons of CO2 emissions. All that for the modest contribution that I might (or might not) make to closing some business for my company. I can, and probably will by carbon offsets for the trip, but I don't consider flying to be sustainable even if you do buy offsets.

I suppose if I were not going on this trip someone else would be going instead...

Water containers: the bad, the good and those in between

I finally brought a re-useable water bottle into work on Friday. I usually use a real mug to get my water from the water cooler. However, the water isn't very cold so I often end up getting ice from the cafeteria. Unfortunately, they only have styrofoam cups. I feel really guilty using them and bottled water isn't the most environmental choice anyhow. Friday morning I noticed a re-usable plastic water bottle that I bought a while ago, but never used. I filled it with ice and water from the Brita pitcher and took it to work.

Unfortunately, I wasn’t feeling that well so it didn't last all day. So at lunchtime, I found myself getting ice water at the cafeteria. They don't have any re-usable cups available. Fortunately, I noticed that they have switched from styrofoam to the "Ecotainer" from International Paper. It says on the cup that it’s compostable. I took it home to research it and since I can't compost it at work.

Here's what I learned at the Ecotainer.

The good part:
1) The eco part is that the liner that makes keeps the liquid inside the cup is made from corn rather than petroleum. Aside from reducing petroleum use, this allows the cup to be composted. The standard cups, with a petroleum-based liner, can't be composted.
2) The cups that the cafeteria used to carry are stryofoam. At least, they aren't using those anymore.

The bad part:
1) The paper in the cup is not re-cycled. This is very disappointing. It's hard to call any disposable cup environmentally conscious, especially one made from virgin paper.
2) Chances are that very few of these "compostable" cups will ever become compost. There's no composting container in the cafeteria, so most of them will go to the landfill. The conditions in standard landfills make it very unlikely that the cup will actually bio-degrade.

My paper cup is luckier that most. After I brought it home, I filled it with dirt and planted one of my broccoli seedlings in it. It will serve as a pot for vegetable seedlings until its worn out and ready to go back to the earth. I can only use so many veggies seedling pots; so I'll try to take a paper cup as rarely as possible, and stick with my re-usable plastic water bottle.

Let's just hope I can remember to fill it up and bring it to work.


What's in season?

Here's what I bought at the farmer's market this week.

leeks
broccoli
red cabbage
pink lady apples
navel oranges

Inertia

I really haven't made much progress on green living since I started writing here. As you might guess from my lack of posts, I've been very busy. Today's a Sunday and I'm lying on the couch with a cough and a sore throat.

In the last month of working hard and not focusing much on green living, I've noticed something interesting (and perhaps obvious). The chance that one will do what one thinks is the right thing is largely based on the extent to which it has become routine. Yes, we are creatures of habit unless we really try to make a change. The things that we do routinely are fairly easy, even if they would seem difficult to others. Changes that other people think of as fairly easy can be difficult if they haven't yet become standard practice in one's life.

A few examples are in order. One change that we've made in our life that many others would find difficult is giving up our car. We sold our car about 4 years ago. The last time I drove was about a year ago, when I rented a car during a visit to my college friends in a less transit-friendly city. In some ways not having a car isn't easy. It takes me significantly longer to get to work (on the train), but its much more relaxing to sit back and read a book than having to constantly watch the road and trying to avoid killing someone. Still there are times when its raining or I'm sick and really want to go the store to get ice cream (sometimes my beloved husband will get on his bike and buy me some :) ) and the convenience would be nice. The relevant point here is the even though car-freedom has its occaisional disadvantages, it's become standard practice for us. Therefore, it's quite easy even though most of my co-workers find it almost unthinkable.

On the other hand, my hopes of switching to local, organic, and unpackaged food have fallen victim to my busyiness at work and my lazyness. I eat pretty healthfully (lots of salads) but often they come from the cafeteria at our office complex. It's higher quality than most cafeterias, but it still means very little control over where the food comes from. They certainly don't label it with the point of origin. I usually eat my food in the cafeteria, thus no take-out containers; but sometimes I'm so busy that I take it back to my desk. To some people, eating local or organic or un-packaged food might be easier than not driving a car; but not for me. It's not a standard part of my life yet. I hope someday it will be.

First Steps in Local Food

I'd like to start eating more local and organic food. I'm not ready to go 100% local since I don't know where to find everything I would need (especially grains). Also, if you need to know where all of your food comes from, it's very hard to eat out except at a few places. With my busy life, I eat at the cafeteria in our "office park" quite a lot and who knows where that food comes from. I don't know that I have time to buy and prepare all of my food. Still, a few steps in that direction would be a good idea.

Yesterday, we went to the Heart of the City farmer's market. Its located in the UN plaza in San Francisco, right across from City Hall. From what I'd read about it the prices are great but there isn't much organic food. Both of these proved to be true. The oddest thing about the market was that almost none of the farmers had signs to indicate the name of their farm or where they are located.

I found one certified organic farm. It was only from the organic certification attached to the stand that I learned that the farm was Ortiz Brothers and that they were from Santa Rosa (about 55 miles from the market). I happily bought some broccoli, bok choy and cilantro from the Ortiz farm for $5. He was friendly as well and didn't mind when I used a little beginner Spanish.

I bought a red cabbage from a stand not labeled organic since I love red cabbage and it was the only stand that had any of it. It was only $1. I asked the woman where the farm was. She got irritated, and said "everybody" asks that and that she considers anything within 250 miles local. She mentioned San Juan Bautista. When I got home I discovered that this is ~92 miles from the market near Hollister, so it was probably fairly local.

We also got red potatoes, garlic, onion and chile peppers from the largest stand in the market, closest to City Hall. Again no mention of organic or where the farm is. They were very busy so I didn't ask. When we got home we had a nice, home-cooked, fairly local meal.

In general, I was fairly disappointed with the market given the small amount of organic food and the difficulty in figuring out where it's from. I probably won't go out of my way to there; but if I'm walking by the Civic Center on a Sunday or Wednesday, I'll be looking for the Ortiz Brothers.