Our progress
Baseline carbon (pp): lbs
12-month carbon (pp on 11/16/08): lbs
Percent change:
How we are doing it
We basically started being more thoughtful about things, that's the biggest impact.
Electricity
Compact fluorescent bulbs (everywhere but fridge, halogen in baby room and some nightlights). Significantly lower wattage bulbs in some locations (bathroom vanity, nightlight alternatives, etc.)
Power strip on some electronics (eliminates standby current draw)
LCD (versus CRT) computer monitor
Use air conditioning as little as possible
Unplug electric devices with inverters (baby monitors) when not in use. The inverter is the small “box” on many appliances which converts alternating current (AC) to direct current (DC) – used by many devices, especially those which ultimately operate off batteries (rechargeable phones, baby monitors, some printers…) The “boxes” are often warm, an obvious indication that they’re sucking some power.
Installed high-intensity, florescent bulbs on motion sensor and photodiode in backyard. This was mainly done as a safety and security thing for our rental apartments, however I just asked the electrician doing the work to make sure (1) the bulbs/fixtures were as efficient as possible, and (2) that they reliably (safety) only came on when absolutely needed (efficiency, thus the photodiode and motion sensor combination so they weren’t on all night or during the day when people go back there.
Heating Fuel
Turn down hot water heater temperature significantly
Vacuum refrigerator coils
Clean out dryer vent
Manage window blinds: close at night & maximize natural light during day
Change furnace filter more often
Provide slippers for guests in house (we’re a non-shoe household)
Install fancy “hospital curtain” as weather guard in foyer. We’re still working on this. Out foyer is pretty drafty (yes – I know, we could be the household for the air sealing, we just think that someone else may be more needy) and it’s basically at the bottom of 3 flights of stairs, so it likely contributes to a chimney effect. I need to order the materials and borrow a sewing machine (and oh yeah – recall how to sew) from my mom to do the work.
Travel
Check auto tire pressure regularly
Highway driving is at or below 65 mph; hyper-miling when possible (Boston-to-NYC not well suited to this). This is super fun. During any and all driving basically try and minimize acceleration and braking. It requires continuous anticipation of both your route and the vehicles around you. Ease up a bit on the accelerator on inclines (i.e., don’t force the car – automatic in our case – to downshift to maintain speed, thus increasing the RPMs), and let it coast/accelerate a bit going downhill. Unfortunately this really pisses off some drivers around you, but can significantly improve gas mileage. There was a segment on 20/20 or 60 minutes many months ago about this – they had 2 identical Toyota Prius’ go from Chicago to New York, one driving “normally” and the other hyperdriving – the hyperdriviing car made it on a single tank of gas, vs. 1+ for the normal driver (I think it was a 20+% difference in fuel consumption).
Bicycle or public transit commute every day. I bicycle every day except for snow and hard/accumulated rain. It’s relatively short (Fresh Pond to Kendall Square via Concord Ave. and Broadway), however I combine it with multiple other trips: compost drop-off (see above), school bus drop-off (or all the way to school if we miss the bus), hazardous materials drop-off (computer parts and non-alkaline batteries), food shopping (1 to 3 farmers markets in season, store otherwise), etc.
Combine automobile trips. The one regular trip we make is to Waltham on Saturdays for Orlando’s fencing class. (Note we actually could take a bus Alewife to Burlington Mall and then walk about 15 minutes, but the schedule is once per hour, which would result in an hour-long class taking the better part of a day.) We’ve primarily combined this with a trip to Market Basket each week (escalating food prices in part driving that decision), however I’ve listed this trip on GoLoco hoping for others to benefit from it. Katherine, who’s decided to take extended time off from work with Cameron, uses the car very little, but consciously organizes trips throughout a given week to combine them. Examples include the Asian food store in Union Square and Target, as well as visiting our rental apartments in Jamaica Plain with other errands.
Waste
Recycle everything (including teabag paper wrappers)
Cloth diapers
Compost regularly (ours as well as neighbors). We and one other family (hopefully others soon) have the City-provided smaller green bins. They simply leave their bin outside 1st thing in the morning on days that it’s full and I take it on my regular commute (either to the DPW on Tues/Thurs or to Whole Foods on other days). Just prior to finding out about the City’s and Whole Foods’ programs I got the condo association to agree to a compost bin outside, however we have very little sun in the places we can practically place it and very little yard to use the material, so the City’s program is ideal.
Used multiple on-line and consumer advocacy groups to eliminate most junk mail. Anecdotally I can say I believe having registered at these has minimized our receipt of junk mail – the problem is that any company with which you do business can legally send you junk mail, so you need to contact all of them independently.
I’ve also seen a campaign where people send brief notes back to any company which sends them junk mail w/ self-stamped mailers – in this way the company pays for it and doesn’t get the intended benefit – if thousands of people did this it would likely be quite successful.
Saved receipts for on-line purchases as PDF files rather than printing out (requires regular backing up of computer (done locally on USB hard drive as well as to www.MozyHome.com)
Water
“If it’s yellow let it mellow, if it’s brown flush it down!” (this often is a conversation piece for guests)
Food
Buy majority of fruit and vegetables at farmers markets during warm weather months.
Community
Talk about what we do as much as possible -- with family and kids, most importantly, but also friends and co-workers.
Founding member of Green Team at work. Amazing results: updated recycling program from white paper only to include all paper, cans, bottles, tin foil and many non-Styrofoam food containers, as well as organized a center-wide Spring Cleaning day with a significant emphasis on re-use amongst the buildings’ occupants, as well as recycling. Procurement now has special consideration for green products/services. The campus of 6 buildings is investigating certification on the green building council’s existing building category. Attempting to maintain/formalize an informal program started last year to refurbish older, turned-in computers (in coordination with Cambridge Rindge and Latin students) to provide computers to students in Kenya who don’t otherwise get them.
Hot tips
- It's no big deal to reuse plastic ziplock baggies. I just rinse them out, hang them to dry, and they can be reused over and over. (Not feasible if something other than a dry solid was in the bag!)
Natural-ingredient shampoo "bars" such as at LUSH last a VERY long time and involve almost no packaging.
- If you are going to compost, it's worth while to invest $10 - in some worms to get you started. Check on your city/town's website before buying things like compost bins - they usually have them much cheaper than home depot. Rain barrels - get as many as you can.
- Pretty basic but world-changing if you actually do it: REDUCE comes way before RECYCLE.
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