Guy Goes Green

Wannabe green guy going green

Posts Tagged ‘forest’

Looking back at the first month of going green

November 22nd, 2009

I am in the fifth week of this project and thought today would be a good day to do a recap of what I have already done and any updates on what I have done since. Here is an overview:

Week 1: Online Knowledge

During the first week, I found all sorts of awesome sites like My Zero Waste and Franke James. Since then, I have slowly been adding to my green site repertoire and have found some really neat websites like Little Homestead in the City and Tap It. I am continuing my progress and every week I find new sites about every topic. This week I even found a site completely devoted to shutting NASCAR down. Let me know if you have any great sites for me to follow!

Week 2: Stop Junk Mail

During the second week, my task was to learn about junk mail and do my best to get them to stop sending it. I learned that 100 million trees are cut down every year just for junk mail and over 40% of that goes straight into the garbage. I have taken steps to remove myself from the lists, but I think this is going to be a marathon rather than a sprint. I have used the template I created several times. I think the junk mail is slowing and I am continuing to follow up with companies, but the effects might take a while. The part that REALLY torked me off was that I removed myself from receiving phone books, the respective companies contacted me and told me I was off of their list, then within 2 weeks I received 2 phone books from the very same companies. I have followed up with them further, wrote a letter to our local paper (has not been published yet), sent this topic to a local radio personality that I hope he will cover and been generally ornery on the topic.

Week 3: Saving Water

I learned this week that I would needlessly waste well over 100,000 gallons of water in my life if I continued what I was doing. I learned some super easy ways to save 54 gallons of water on any given day. So far, I think this challenge has caused the most dramatic daily change I have made so far. I used to take 2 baths every day. Now I only shower or bathe once a day.

Week 4: Food Waste

I learned quite a bit last week. I learned that food waste creates a large amount of methane, which is far worse than CO2 as far as greenhouse gases go. We can help reduce the greenhouse gases by better using or planning food/meals, donate what we not use, or compost food waste. I also was exposed to Freeganism, which still

Food Bank with Marcia Paulson

fascinates me. I was fortunate enough to be able to speak with our local Solid Waste Utility Manager and he schooled me on the awesome things Fargo is doing to reduce waste and reuse energy.

I also learned about the food bank and what is happening locally to help recover and redistribute food that would otherwise go to waste. Ashley and I were fortunate enough to take a tour of the Lutheran Social Services Food Bank headquarters which is shown in the pictures. Marcia Paulson, Director of Marketing and Development, showed us around the warehouse and helped show us the great things they are doing for the people of our state and area (in addition to helping with the environment). Paulson pointed out that they work with over 50 restaurants, grocery stores, hospitals, colleges, and bakeries to help recover food. One chain of grocery stores alone, Hornbacher’s, provided over 100,000 pounds of food last year PER STORE. Although the Food Bank is doing some really great things, Paulson indicated that there is always ways to improve.

Visit to the Food Bank and the huge shelves of food

Not only have Ashley and I become more aware of our food waste, I think we have become more aware of the process and what is going on in our community. We just volunteered to help out at the food bank and will update you all when that happens. In this case, going green has other implications.

Summary

It has been a really cool month and I appreciate everybody that has stopped by to take a look. If you have any comments, suggestions or questions… leave them in the comments area below.

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Posted in General Green

Tags: earth food waste forest green junk mail summary water

Week two in review: Green guy vs. junk mail

November 2nd, 2009

Over the past week, I have learned quite a bit about junk mail and the impact it is having on the environment. Although this is only my second task, I believe this may be one of the tasks that end up having the biggest impact on my long term behavior and on the environment. Not only is it staggering how much waste junk mail generates, but also how easy it is to stop and reuse.

A few days ago I created a list of 24 ways to stop or reuse junk mail and I have either completed or am working on several of these items. I admit that we already have been putting much of the junk mail into the recycle bin, but this is mostly Ashley’s doing. I will do my best to be a bit better about separating these items. I went to www.dmachoice.org & OptOutPrescreen.com to remove myself from junk mail mailing lists.

Every day that I receive junk mail, I note the company that is sending it and contact them directly to get myself removed from the lists. I even created a template that I use and you are more than welcome to take. I write down the companies I contact and hang it on the fridge in order to keep track of the companies that should not be sending me things.

I have 6 phonebooks from four different companies. I have contacted each of these to stop sending me these phone books. Honestly, I have no need for these anymore since I have the internet. At most, we should only need one. I certainly do not need 6 phonebooks delivered to my house.

Finally, I am going to try and save the junk mail we receive to try some of the other suggestions I put on my list. I am not sure exactly what I am going to do, but I do think it would be fun to try some of the crafts like Franke James’ suggestion of gift wrap or the Daily Green’s suggestion of making artsy paper. We will see….. Possibly I will save up my junk mail all year and make one of the most epic paper mache statues of all time.

Well, Ashley, I hope I have made you proud this week with the progress I have made on stopping junk mail. Beyond any ‘green’ agendas, junk mail is one big waste of our resources and a huge annoyance. I have honestly learned something this week and will continue to be vigilant on this.

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Posted in General Green, Week 2 Junk Mail

Tags: forest green green mail junk mail tree trees

Ashley’s take on junk mail and this week’s task

October 28th, 2009

In choosing my second topic for this blog, I consulted my list of ways I would like to see my husband go green. However, the topic I selected wasn’t on my list at all. This is something that I have always frustrated me, but I just never did anything about. I had come across this link that gives stats and a visual description of how much companies use to produce those junk catalogs that we don’t even look at anyways. Also as Ben said, 41 pounds of junk mail is what an average person receives a year, most of which we don’t even look at. This is what made me want to take action, once and for all.

Many people argue that you can just recycle the catalogs that you receive instead of throwing them away. But I have a better idea. Removing your name from mailing lists not only saves the forests that are cut down, the oil extracted and water needed to produce these catalogs, but it will also save you “70 hours a year” while sorting through junk mail. Now I work at a company that sends out catalogs to customers each year, so I understand how it works. You purchase from one company; they can then sell your name to other catalog companies.

There are many resources out there now to remove your name from mailing lists. I am new at this but so far I have signed up at DMAchoice.org, and catalogchoice.com. These websites seem easy to navigate and user friendly. I have yet to encounter a problem. Throughout the year we will keep tabs on what type of junk mail we get and remove our names from their mailing lists. I think that one year of this will mean many more years of junk mail freedom.