A Retrospective Look

Working with The Cat Scan taught me a lot about green living, and doing this blog allowed me to explore many areas of green living that I personally wanted to know more about and share with my many readers...all two of you. A special thanks to Catherine for painfully reading through more than one of my blogs...but for my final blog I thought I'd take a look back at what I've done, and what I've learned along the way.

I began with a look at the Air Conditioner versus The Fan. An epic battle that has raged for centuries. I chose this topic because I had recently moved into my own apartment and things like the electric bill were a worry for my wallet, so my personal quest to save a few bucks became a blog. And what did I learn? Well running multiple fans is cheaper than using the AC, but if you're gonna use that AC, you can still be smart about it by only running it while you're home, turning the dial up a degree or two, and using windows on less toasty days.

Then I moved to a look at water conservation in the home. This blog was born while brushing my teeth on morning when I began to wonder how much water I was wasting and what things I could do to cure my wasteful ways. And what did I learn? Shorter showers and fully loaded dishwashers are a great and low-effort way to reduce water use in the home.

Up next, regular versus premium gas. My car has died many untimely deaths in the past couple months, and I was wondering if my choice in gas had anything to do with it. Plus gas prices are so high right now...who wants to pay the extra ten cents for fancy gas? Well what did I learn? Premium gas is silly nonsense gas. Unless you have a specially tuned engine, the regular unleaded will do just fine. So keep those extra coins to buy yourself a Thirstbuster.

I next wanted to know about playing sports and being eco-friendly. I play kickball and dodgeball every Tuesday night with co-workers and I wondered if we could somehow do our part while we played? What did I learn? Yes, we can do our part, because there are some fine corporations out there that manufacture environmentally safe sports equipment, go figure!

Then I moved to the hot topic, eco-sitting! I literally sat down at my computer to blog, and decided to see if sitting here could be done in an environmentally conscious way. And I learned that I can, because there are companies making desk chairs, and even full home furnishings with eco-friendly materials. This was also my favorite blog because I got a comment from someone! Made my day!

Next was batteries. My phone battery was the inspiration here, but I spun it towards more conventional batteries for the sake of the blog. And what did I learn? Batteries aren't good for the environment, but you can dispose of them in environmentally safe ways. A large chunk of toxic chemicals from dump are the result of things like batteries, that had they been disposed of properly, would have never been an issue. Your best bet is to try to use rechargeable batteries.

Ahh, the easiest blog for me was on riding the bus, because for four years now I've been riding the bus almost everyday of the school semester throughout my college career. I know the buses ups and downs. So what did I learn...not too much, but I did learn that Tucson's Sun Tran uses all Bio-diesel fuel for their buses, and my riding the bus actually made a big difference, and I'm only one man here!

Then I talked about the benefits of trees. I kinda stared out my tiny kitchen window from my desk and realized the tree out front might make for an interesting investigative blog. What did I learn? Well, trees provide way more benefits than just giving off oxygen, and planting one nearby could really improve your life.

Lastly I touched on green lawn care. I don't have a lawn, but I figured someone who may read this blog might have a lawn, why would I want to leave them out? What did I learn? There are a few good methods for caring for your lawn in an eco-friendly way, like leaving your grass a little bit longer, leaving the clippings on the lawn to replenish the grass, and choosing a grass that’s suitable to your climate.

Overall I learned a lot of things about a lot of subjects affecting me daily. I've applied a few things to even my own life, like only running that dishwasher when its at capacity. Sure that means running low on cups and fancy silverware, but its an easy choice to make and it just doesn't take much effort. In fact, there's so many thing that don't require any effort at all if you want to be green. All it takes is a Google search, a little motivation, and some perseverance. And I leave you all with that...
Eric...
The Average Green Guy

Gone Green...The Results

So I lived green. I did so for three days, but I did some other green activities throughout the weekend as time allowed. First off, it was easy to be greener, but it wasn't necessarily easy. Riding the Sun Tran bus everywhere came natural to me, because I ride the bus to school and back everyday, but riding the bus to school, then riding it home, then riding it again to work was exhausting. To top it off, I couldn't ride it home because I get off work late each evening, so I carpooled home. Carpooling is a little more fun than riding the bus, and it's still doing something positive for the environment. So transportation was as simple as that.

Around the house, I unplugged all the appliances that I was not using. That meant my entire entertainment center was unplugged all day. That meant no clock on the stereo either. I kept the laptop unplugged except to recharge, and kept the phone charger out of the wall except when in use. I opened all the window blinds during the day instead of using indoor lights. My apartment doesn't have the best window placement, but when I thought about it, I don't need it to be bright in my house to do my daily activities, like homework, or cleaning the kitchen, or cleaning up my room.

Two habits I quickly had to break was turning on a light as soon as I enter a room, regardless of the need for a light, and not turning the light off when I walk away. I have a habit of flipping on a light, even if I'm in the room for just a second, and then not turning that light off when I walk away. I feel like the majority of my personal energy conservation came from breaking this habit.

For water, I did a couple different things. Firstly, I did those two minute showers to save water use. It really surprised me how much concentration and focus it took to shower in two minutes. I guess I hadn't paid attention to how much time I lose in the shower, and how much of that time the water is running. I guess that's because I usually shower to wake up in the morning, and I'm just not coherent enough that early in my day. I also followed expert advice and didn't run the dishwasher until it was completely full, and I didn't rinse dishes before they went in the dishwasher. This saves a ton of water, and using the dishwasher meant I didn't need to stand in the kitchen and use up a light to see what I'm cleaning. I also had to shave during my experiment, so to save water there I filled up a cup with water for rinsing my razor, rather than filling the sink, more than once, and then rinsing out the sink with running water. The cup contained all my clippings and that poured down the drain and there was minimal sink rising to do. I found that I saved a ton of water using this method and I will continue to practice from here on out.

I purchased some Green Works all purpose cleaner at Wal-Mart. This product is made by Clorox, but it is environmentally safe and friendly. It worked great on my messy kitchen, and I plan to continue using this product well after this story is written.

For food, being organic was difficult, but the first thing I did was avoid fast food for three days. Eating organic can't be done at any major fast food chain. I had to rely on Wal-Mart for organic choices, and they were limited. The best things I found were pesticide-free tomatoes, and organic cookies and milk. The cookies, made by Back to Nature, and the milk, made by Shamrock Farms, were both tasty, even if they were a little more expensive. I found that eating organic can be pricey at your major chain stores, so shopping around for a good deal is important if you have a limited budget like myself.

So overall the project was a success and I learned a few things that will carry over into my regular life. I have a bus to catch, and the laptop battery is dying, so until later, be green when you can, because even a little bit adds up over time.

Caring for the lawn being all green

I don't have a lawn, but I thought I'd blog about how to care for one if I did. How to care for it...and be Earth-friendly, that is!

The first step to a good lawn is good soil. An article at PioneerThinking.com provided by the Environmetal Protection Agency suggests numerous things for caring for a lawn while being environmentally. To improve soil quality they suggest adding sulfur to soil that is low in acid, and adding lime juice to soil that has too much acid. Monitoring acid levels in the soil can be very important to the health of a lawn, and avoiding chemicals and going with limes can be much more environmentally friendly. They also recommend growing grass that's right for your area, which according to GardenPlace.com, has all the traits a Tucson lawn would need, mainly the ability to thrive in dry climates that don't receive regular rain. In our region, water use is a major concern, so growing grass that doesn't need constant water attention will be popular with the neighborhood, the water bill, and you'll still have a friendly patch of grass to play catch on during the cooler days of the summer. GardenPlace.com says it's also a good safe grass for pets.
PioneerThinking.com also suggests two more tips. Firstly, cut your grass often, but allow it to stay long. By keeping it long, the grass will stay healthy and will require less overall care. And secondly, don't pick up those grass clippings when you're done. They help keep your lawn healthy too by keeping nutrients in the lawn instead of removing them.

Prepping For My Project

In the coming weeks I will be doing a story for The Cat Scan which will force me to live green for three full days, while my co reporter Michael Schwartz does the complete opposite, and we'll compare the damage we've done in a story for the site. To prepare myself for this project I decided that I must set out and find things that I can do in my daily routine that will make myself more green without too much hassle or expense. I hear a lot of people on the greener side of the fence say that being eco-friendly takes little effort, just a willingness to commit to doing things a little different than everyone else. I wanna see just how true this is by testing some of the ideas I've found...

Think Green Media suggests that I (a)Buy Organic and (b)Take Mass Transit. Well folks, I'm going to be doing both. In order to fully emmerse myself in the project. I will go out on my limited budget and purchase some organic alternatives to food, like Target's Archer Farms brand which offers a wide variety of organic products for my temporary green diet. And I will be taking the bus everywhere for those three days, which will include a trip to work and probably walking back home, since Sun Tran doesn't run when I'm off work. We'll see how these things go.

Earth Easy suggests in their 25 Ways to Save Water at Home article that I can save water by taking shorter showers. I am notirious for long showers, so this will be a great challenge, but I will be up to the task.

The Federal Trade Commission has numerous tips for home owners for ways to reduce energy in your home. As an apartment renter, I found one area where I could reduce energy use, and that is to recycle. Their website had numerous definitions of different recycling terms. For my project, I'm going to recycle for three days. My apartment complex does not offer recycling so it will be up to me to separate my trash and find a place to take it, so we'll dive into that when the time comes.

The University of California at Berkley says one way to reduce electricity use in the home is to unplug those electronic devices that just sit on standby all day. Everything in your home with a little red light on it or that has a rechargable battery is simply wasting electricity. So that means this laptop I'm using, it's gonna be unplugged. The stereo and TV, they don't need to always be plugged in either, so I'll be living with empty sockets for three days to further reduce my carbon footprint on this Earth.

So check out my story coming up at the end of April and we'll see how I fare, roughing it green.