The Good Human » Responsible

You Are Not Allowed To Line Dry Your Clothes.

david — Thu, 09 Feb 2012 14:00:41 +0000

Has anyone ever told you that it was illegal to be line drying your clothes outside? If you live in the United States, you may be one of the millions of citizens living in communities which have made it against the law to do so. Outside of the U.S., line drying your clothes is the norm; most people don’t even own dryers. But here in the States, towns, cities, and HOA’s have set up laws making the act of line drying your own clothing illegal. So what gives?

Turns out, lawmakers and those snobby neighbors of ours don’t like the idea of residents being allowed to hang out their clothes to dry in the sun. Never mind the fact that doing so is better for the health of the planet, the health of the neighbor, and it reduces wear and tear on clothing – they think that clothing hanging on a clothesline brings down property values and is a blight on the community. But want to know what a true blight on a community is? Climate change, and all the destruction that comes with it.

See, line drying clothes saves energy, saves fossil fuels, reduces pollution, reduces need for bleaches, and makes clothing last longer so it doesn’t need to be replaced so often. In fact, there are 10 reasons to line dry your clothes if you aren’t doing so already. But what if you live in one of these communities or housing developments that says it’s against the law to do so?

You can fight the laws with the help of Project Laundry List. By encouraging your state legislators to introduce a “Right to Dry”, registering your prohibitive community on the site, and talking to your friends and neighbors about the hows and whys of line drying, you can make sure that your right to dry your clothes using the sun is preserved.

While line drying was the way everyone dried their clothes in the past (See Bring Back the Past to Save the Future) and continues to be the way in most countries, some people in this country are fighting any progress in stemming the climate change brought on by our own actions. This is one very simple step we can take to reduce the burden on our environment, so let’s work to make sure we can all freely dry our clothing outside should we choose to do so.

Photo from BigStock

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University of Vermont to End Sales of Bottled Water

david — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 14:00:14 +0000

The University of Vermont will be ending the sale of bottled water on campus as of January 2013, according to a release today from University Communications. This news comes just five months before the end of a contract with Coca-Cola which stipulated that the beverage company would provide 100% of the drinks sold in vending machines and 80% served in retail and dining halls.

Across campus, drinking fountains will be converted into water bottle filling stations, to make the transition easier for students to adapt to only carrying reusable bottles with them instead of disposables.

“This change has been student-driven,” says Gioia Thompson, director of the Office of Sustainability. “Students advocating for an end to sales of bottled water have dedicated many hours over the past four years encouraging fellow students to change their habits and persuading administrators to foster a more sustainable beverage system for the community.”

It will become one of only 15 institutions to implement a ban like this, and in addition to the ban the school will require that 1/3 of all drinks offered in vending machines be healthy options. Back in 2009, Bundanoon, Australia became the first town to ban bottled water, and in 2010 Concord, Massachusetts also decided to ban water sold plastic bottles. Hopefully we will start seeing more of these bans, as the plastic problem keeps getting bigger and bigger.

A few things to keep in mind:

American tap water is among the safest in the world.
As much as 40% of the bottled water sold in the U.S. is just filtered tap water anyway. Be sure to check the label and look for “from a municipal source” or “community water system”, which just means it is tap water.
Tap water costs about $0.002 per gallon compared to the $0.89 to $8.26 per gallon charge for bottled water. If the water we use at home cost what even cheap bottled water costs, our monthly water bills would run $9,000.

If you’re thinking of ditching plastic disposables, check out my post How to Choose a Reusable Water Bottle for some tips.

Save up to 70% on Reusables at the Warehouse Sale on Reuseit.com

david — Wed, 01 Feb 2012 14:00:33 +0000

One of my favorite stores online for all things reusable is Reuseit.com. Living in a throw-away society like we do, it’s sometimes difficult to find products that are designed to be reused over and over again while also reducing waste in our landfills. I have bought many things from these guys over the years, from my Klean Kanteen water bottles to my reusable produce bags, and I am always on the lookout for when they have a sale. Well, they are currently having their annual warehouse sale and many of their reusable items are reduced by 70%, so if you have been thinking about switching your disposable everything over to reusable everything, now may be a good time to do so. Check out a few of the products on sale:

These 100% stainless steel LunchBots make it easy to avoid the waste of disposable plastic containers, baggies, plastic bags & aluminum foil. This larger, single compartment container is perfect for main dishes like salads, pasta or takeout and are the perfect eco-friendly containers for a healthy and safe lunch. It’s BPA-free and it won’t stain, rust or leach harmful chemicals into your food. If you take the time to make a healthy lunch, why put it in a non-healthy lunch box? On sale for $13.95, down from $19.95

These BlueAvocado produce sacks are sturdy enough to hold up to 10 lbs of produce each and are great for larger foods such as cauliflower, broccoli, grapefruit and cantaloupes. Wash your fruit & veggies right in the fast-drying mesh bag. The ventilated mesh material makes the bags perfect for items that need to breathe. The bags have a drawstring closure, are machine washable, and are made from recycled materials. In addition, the company gives 1% of sales to organizations like Kiva.org. On sale for $4.95, down from $9.95

Reusable cloth diapers are a simple way to cut back on waste and save thousands of dollars in the process. These are easy to use and easy to clean. Each diaper has a back pocket for the super-absorbent insert (just remove the insert & wash). They are adjustable (fitting babies 7 to 35 pounds), so they can grow with your child. On sale for $14.95, down from $19.95

Set of 5 Ecobags in different pastel colors (from colorfast, low-impact dyes) and 1 hemp stuff sack to keep them in. These shopping bags are fantastic to always have with you, regardless of what kind of shopping you are doing. They are very lightweight and can each hold up to 40 lbs of goods. You can never have enough of these type of bags, and I often have several by the front door and several more in the car, just in case. On sale for $24.95, down from $31.95

There is tons of stuff on sale over at their online store, so take a peek to see if anything catches your eye. The key to buying responsibly is to not buy the things you don’t need; so if you don’t need any new reusable goods, please don’t buy any! But if you are looking for these type of items, whether you are just starting to go green or to replace long-used broken ones, by all means take advantage of sales like this.

Tips For Reducing Water Usage In The Bathroom

david — Sun, 29 Jan 2012 14:00:52 +0000

Q: Is it true that the bathroom is where over half of our household water usage takes place? What are some ways to take a bite out of that?

Yes indeed, some 60 percent of our household indoor water usage happens in the bathroom. As such, updating old leaky fixtures and changing a few basic habits could go a long way to not only saving fresh water, an increasingly precious resource, but also money.

Undoubtedly, the toilet is the biggest water hog in the bathroom. Those made before 1993 use up to eight gallons of water per flush, five times what modern toilets use. “It’s a good idea to replace pre-1993 toilets if you can,” says Patty Kim of National Geographic’s Green Guide. (FYI, usually a toilet’s manufacture date is stamped under the lid if you want to check how old it is.) If it is older and you can’t or don’t want to upgrade it, Kim recommends rescuing a two liter soda bottle from the recycling bin and filling it partially with some water and sand or pebbles and then putting it into your toilet’s tank, where it will take up space and force your toilet to use less water every flush. Or get a Toilet Tank Bank for less than two bucks; it hangs in your toilet tank and displaces almost a gallon of water to save water on every flush.

Plumbing leaks account for some 14 percent of the total water usage in an average U.S. home. Toilets are often a major culprit. Kim recommends testing your toilet by putting 5-10 drops of food coloring into the tank, then put the lid back on but don’t flush. Check back in 15 minutes or so to see if any of the colored water leaked down into the bowl. If so, you have a water-wasting leak, and it might finally be time to replace that aging toilet after all. The EarthEasy website reports that replacing an older18 liter per flush toilet with an ultra-low volume (ULV) 6 liter flush model “represents a 70 percent saving in water flushed and will cut indoor water use by about 30 percent.”

The shower can also be problematic as a water-waster, especially if the shower head in question was made before new regulations went into effect in 1992 mandating lower flow. Kim says you can check to see if your shower head is older or not by turning the shower on full blast and catching its output for two minutes in a bucket. If the bucket is overflowing, then your shower head is an older, more wasteful model. Newer low flow shower heads won’t come anywhere near to filling the bucket after two minutes. A new shower head costs around $10 and is a great investment because you can save water and money with every ensuing shower. Regardless of whether or not you have a newer shower head, you can save more water by turning off the shower to soap up, then turning it back on to rinse. Eartheasy reminds us that even with a new shower head, even a moderately short shower can still use between 20 and 40 gallons of water. But that’s nothing compared to a bathtub, which can hold as much as 50-60 gallons of water.

Additional pearls of wisdom in regard to reducing bathroom water waste include turning off the faucet while brushing teeth. Better yet, fill up a glass with just enough water to rinse after brushing. Likewise for shaving, stop up the sink with a little warm water in it and wiggle your razor around in the basin between strokes. And if you suspect your faucet may be spraying harder than it needs to, unscrew the aerator tip where the water comes out and take it into a hardware store for a more stingy replacement.

CONTACTS: The Green Guide; EarthEasy.

EarthTalk is written and edited by Roddy Scheer and Doug Moss and is a registered trademark of E-The Environmental Magazine (www.emagazine.com). Send questions to: earthtalk@emagazine.com. Subscribe: www.emagazine.com/subscribe; Free Trial Issue: www.emagazine.com/trial.