Green Buckeye

The end of the school year is fast approaching. Looking for something unique to say thank you to that special teacher? Neil Drobny of the Central Ohio Sustainability Alliance suggests a gift certificate from the Waste Not Center!

Labels: consumer choices, resources

Bike to Work Week May 12-16, 2008

Labels: biking, consumer choices, events, fun

Sierra Club's Green Life blog has a list of green beers for St. Paddy's day. Check out the comments, too, where readers share their local favorites and remind us that local brews might have a smaller carbon footprint.

Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewing Company is the closest brewery mentioned in the article. Do we have any breweries in Columbus making strong attempts to be more sustainable? Maybe The Columbus Beer Wench can help us out!

What's your favorite local brew?

Labels: consumer choices

Over and over on green web sites and blogs I've read that one way to reduce greenhouse gases (GHGs) and save money is to stop idling. They urge me to shut down my engine if I'm going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds, 30 seconds, 2 minutes, 10 minutes - none of them seem to agree on how long.

Frankly, I was skeptical. Even though I know that, "When you're not moving, you're getting zero miles per gallon," wasn't there some mitigating reason not to turn off the engine? Doesn't the engine need to be warmed up? What about the amount of gas it takes to start the engine - isn't that more than when the engine is running? What about the wear and tear on the engine with all that on and off? After all, I don't want to save a few pennies or emissions only to have to replace my engine early.

I decided to research a little more. Here's what I found.

Car Talk

• In Driving Tips for Treehuggers, Click and Clack reassured me that "Except in below-zero conditions, you can just start the engine and drive off." Unless I'm scraping ice off the windshield, looks like I'll be turning the key and driving off. Some of the other sources indicated that cars needed no more than 30 seconds of warm-up idling.

Edmunds

• I figured they would be the most mainstream and skeptical. Guess what? In What Really Saves Gas? And How Much? the Edmunds folks said you could improve fuel economy by as much as 19% by avoiding excessive idling. Their recommendation? Shut it down if you're stopping for more than a minute. This was the longest amount of time recommended by any of the media sources, which I would expect given their love of car culture.

California Consumer Energy Center

• This page busts several myths, and comes to the conclusion that "more than ten seconds of idling uses more fuel than restarting the engine." They also say that "component wear caused by restarting the engine is estimated to add $10 per year to the cost of driving," which they think will be recovered from the savings from not idling. According to this source then, I can go ahead and shut the engine off if I'm stopping for 10 seconds or longer, and I don't worry about the wear and tear. The Canada Office of Energy Efficiency backs this up, too.

So here are Tina's Green Buckeye guidelines for idling:

• Unless it's below zero, start the car and drive off. The most conservative recommendation for warming up the car is 30 seconds, so if you can't get out of the habit completely, warm up for 30 seconds.
• Except in traffic, if you're going to be stopped for more than 10 seconds, shut off the car. You'll save money and greenhouse gases. You can take the Edmunds conservative recommendation of one minute, but you won't save as much.
• Park the car and walk into the fast-food joint or bank instead of using the drive-thru. It's better for you, it's better for your mileage, and it's better for the planet!

Labels: consumer choices, environment, tips, transportation

Last week the Chinese government announced a ban on super-thin plastic shopping bags, and will forbid shops from offering free plastic bags.

Perhaps presciently, several days before that Jennifer Norman of the Go Green Charleston blog wrote a post titled, "Should Plastic Grocery Bags be Banned?" She has uncovered numerous reasons why she believes they should be banned, and it's a post that's well worth reading.

I don't do the regular grocery shopping at our house, but I do drop in to Kroger and Whole Foods on occasion. I know they offer canvas and other reuseable shopping bags for sale for what seems to be a reasonable price. I found these recycled cotton, fair trade tote bags on Amazon.com. You can often buy cute ones from local artists and crafters, too.

Labels: consumer choices

This weekend the Olde Worthington Farmers Market is sponsoring one of their indoor Winter Market days at the Griswold Senior Center. You can support local growers and crafters - read more about the market on the Sustainable Worthington site.

Labels: consumer choices

Toby Boyce hosts the regional real estate blog Sadie's Take on Delaware Ohio. Recently Toby pointed out that AEP is making renewable energy certificates available to consumers. For less than $2 a month you can buy two "Green Product blocks" that support the production of about 200 kilowatt-hours of renewable energy from a landfill gas called methane.




Technorati tags: renewable energy certificates, American Electric Power

Labels: consumer choices, renewable energy, resources

This week I ended up applying for membership in SOAR Energy, "a member-owned solar and renewable energy buyers cooperative." I say "ended up" because I didn't start out looking to join a energy cooperative, I started out looking for an alternative (cheaper) natural gas supplier. I didn't know anything about it, so first I read up on natural gas choice on the Office of the Ohio Consumers' Counsel Gas Choice 101 site. Then I found myself on the PUCO's Apples to Apples web site. While reviewing the certified suppliers and their plans, I stumbled on "The Energy Cooperative of Ohio through SOAR Energy."

Labels: consumer choices

Cleveland blogger Jack Ricchiuto blogs his personal practices for sustainability this week.

I have tried to become more mindful of how much printing I do at work. In the last month I've stopped printing my daily calendar from Lotus Notes. At first I thought it would be hard to live without it, but it turns out I don't need it most days. That's one piece of paper less each workday - it seems small, but year after year and person after person it adds up!

There are so many small things we can practice in our lives to improve and extend our use of resources. What practices have you taken up or built upon recently?

Labels: consumer choices, resources, sustainability

It's less than 24 hours until Book 7 hits the shelves. The excitement at our house is mounting! Plans are being debated: Do we pick up the book at 12:01 a.m. and stay up all night reading? Or should we pick up the book at 12:01 a.m., hit the sack, and dive into it fresh tomorrow morning?

How green is (or isn't) The Deathly Hallows? You can read a little about the controversy here and here.

Happy reading!

Labels: consumer choices, fun

Reading through the mayor's top 10 ways to get green, I noticed this item:

Don’t wash your car in your driveway - The soap goes into the street, then into storm sewers and then into our waterways. Use a commercial car wash, or a gravel or grass area that will keep the wash water contained.

I hadn't heard this before, so I did a little research.

It appears that commercial car washes are required to dispose of the water through the sanitary sewer system. This prevents the dirty water from draining to the stormwater system, which flows (untreated) to our waterways. Washing your car on gravel or grass filters the water before it enters groundwater, storm drains, or creeks.

If you wash the car over grass or gravel, it's recommended that you use cleaners that are biodegradeable and contain no phosphates. I found this one on Amazon called Simple Green.

Labels: consumer choices, water

Today Inhabitat has a nice piece about ways to green your 4th.

Central Ohioans have a Red White & Boom! hangover today. Many more quaint local fireworks displays are scheduled for this evening. Here's hoping that the rain holds off until 11 p.m., or that it blows over before dusk!

This gorgeous image of fireworks by local photographer Ed Kreminski.

Labels: consumer choices, resources

Environmentalists say that one way to lower your carbon load on the planet is to eat food that is produced close to home. They say that eating spinach that was grown 20 miles from home instead of 2000 miles from home means that less energy was expended in getting that spinach to you.

If you like the idea of eating locally, check into Restaurant Widow's post on community supported agriculture (CSA) in Central Ohio. Lisa provides a nice explanation of what CSA is, what you might expect from a local farm's CSA program, and a wonderful list of local CSA farmers.

Labels: consumer choices, resources

If you read Treehugger, you may have heard of the green social networking site called Fivelimes. At Fivelimes, you can add and rate sustainable products, services, and businesses. The big news is that the folks at Fivelimes have added Columbus to their list of cities!

To get the ball rolling, I added The Northstar Cafe to the list for Columbus. So far, that's the only thing there that's Columbus-based. I invite you to surf over to Fivelimes and help build the list of all that is green and good in Central Ohio!

Labels: consumer choices, resources

In studying CEOs during graduate school, I learned a bit about Lee Raymond of Exxon. What I learned was so appalling that I immediately stopped buying gasoline from ExxonMobile.

Since then I've been filling up at BP. Yes, if I could live without gasoline I would be a better person. No, BP isn't perfect, but in comparison to Exxon, it seemed to be a better choice.

An article titled "Pick Your Poison" in Sierra magazine this month rates the gasoline companies from the perspective of environmental responsibility. I was pleased to discover that BP is still a better choice than Exxon. But maybe you're a dedicated Shell customer?

Read the article to find out how your brand rates. And I invite you to share which brand you buy, and why.

Labels: consumer choices, resources