Eco Stuff January 3, 2008

At The Siren we write about the environment and being eco-friendly a lot. Does that make us eco-feminists? Depends on your definition of eco-feminism. While I don’t agree with the concept that women are inherently more in tune with nature than men, I am an environmentalist and I am a feminist. If putting those two things together with a hyphen equals “eco-feminist,” so be it.

Regardless of labels, here’s some stuff, culled from various past posts and other sources, that we think are important to keep at the top of the heap.

— Emmily

Websites were you can calculate your carbon footprint:

• www.myfootprint.org (Earth Day Network)
• www.carbonfootprint.com (Carbon Footprint, a company that helps people off-set their carbon evils)
• www.climatecrisis.net/takeaction/carboncalculator (Climate Crisis, part of Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth movement)

The Sin City Siren’s EASY Eco-Tips:

1. You’ve heard it once. You’ve heard it a million times. So why aren’t you switching as many of your light bulbs from incandecent to CFL aka compact fluorescent lights? The formula for how much energy it saves (which translates into how much money you save on your power bill) was the first thing I learned back in a college enviro physics class! It’s a no-brainer. CFL’s use 65-75 percent less energy and last 10 percent longer than regular bulbs (which so cancels out the 30 percent higher sticker shock). Just do it already!
2. This one is a choose-your-own adventure but any part of this helps … Get a more fuel efficient car. Drive less by combining trips whenever possible (Tip: use online maps to plot your errands before you go to pick the most efficient path!). Take mass-transit when you can. (Get over your xenophobia and classist elitism about it. In Europe, that’s how everyone does it.) Bike to work (that’s a two-fer because you get a little exercise too).
3. Recycle. I don’t care what blow-hard convinced you it doesn’t work or it’s stupid. Get over yourself and do it. It takes less energy to re-manufacture many plastics, tin, glass and aluminum products into new products than it does to mine ores and produce new chemicals. (For instance, it takes 20 times more energy to create a new can than to make one from recycled aluminum. And glass is even better. You can reclaim almost the entire glass product when making a new one!) At least do the bare minimum: paper (especially all that junk mail), cans and glass.
4. Speaking of junk mail … get yourself removed from different lists by contacting your credit card companies and magazine companies. Tell them they can’t sell your name and info to other companies. Contact junk mail distributors who are particularly bothersome. Be annoying back. Eventually we all win. Or, even easier, pay organizations like Green Dimes to do the work for you.
5. Stop getting plastic shopping bags! This is SO easy to do! (*For more details see below.) You may be surprised at how easy, even when you grocery shop. Buy or make yourself a few re-usable canvas shopping bags. Take them with you or keep them in your car/bike/whatever. That’s what I do. When you get to the register ask to have it bagged in your bag. Here in Las Vegas people balk. But I don’t give a crap. I’m the customer. I’m right. The thing is that plastic bags don’t biodegrade in landfills so if you throw them away (either on their own or as garbage bags for those little canisters), they just sit there. Plus, 14 plastic grocery bags have enough petroleum to fuel a car for a mile! And plastic bags may end up doing more harm in developing countries where some nations are chosing to ban them, just like San Francisco recently did.
6. Get green about cleaners. There are all sorts of good recipes on the Internet. You don’t need all those harsh ingredients and neither does the environment.
7. Adjust your thermostat. Again, SO EASY! A few degrees warmer in summer. A few degrees colder in winter. This one saves you money, too!
8. Conserve water. Here in the Las Vegas desert I’m totally against people having grass. It’s not native to here and it costs the enviro and your wallet way too much to maintain the illusion! But anywhere you live, you can do the small stuff. Don’t run the water while you’re brushing your teeth, for instance.
9. Unplug electronics you’re not using. As much as 75 percent of power used for electronics is while they are just sitting there idly! I read in Real Simple that you can save as much as 5 percent off your yearly electric bill by just unplugging things not in use.
10. Make sure you’re home is well-insulated. This could cost you in the beginning but it will save you money for years down the road on heating and cooling. Also consider getting low-emission windows, which can save you a lot of money in sunny spots like Las Vegas. Another tip is using insulating drapes/curtains/shutters. It can keep the heat out in the summer and the warmth in during winter months.
11. Stop using bottled water (when possible). For one, most of the $11 billion bottled-water industry product comes from the same-old source you and I get it from every day — municipal water. For another, those pesky little plastic bottles have a tendency to not get recycled and account for a sizable chunk of unnecessary landfill space. (A 2003 report by the State of California estimated at least 1 billion bottles are ending up in the trash in that state each year!) And on top of that, over time the thin plastic used for bottled water can leach phthlates, a substance shown to be toxic to humans and animals. The best thing to do is to carry a reusable bottle, such as a Nalgene bottle. (In fact, Nalgene has set up a site where you can pledge to give up bottled water and learn more about why it’s sort of the devil.) And if you absolutely have to get a bottle of water, then do the earth a favor and recycle it!

*The plastic bag thing:

The average American uses 300 to 700 shopping bags a year, which equates to about 3 to 7 gallons of crude oil! So your penchant to get a bag when you bought one little pack of gum is contributing to our dependence on foreign oil. (How often can you say an environmental cause can reach across the aisle with War Hawks?)

At the very least, please start recycling your plastic shopping bags! The EPA estimates that only 1% of all plastic bags are recycled.

Need a reason?

1. Plastic bags (and paper for that matter) basically don’t biodegrade in landfills. According to the EPA, it can take 1,000 years for a plastic bag to decompose while it only takes a month for a paper bag. That means every time you use one as a garbage bag or just bunch them up and throw them out, they just sit there and in some cases hinder biodegradation of items inside. (The exception is the new corn-based biodegradable plastic kind.) So even though plastic bags might take 40% less energy to produce than paper, since they are less likely to be recycled and take so long to decompose, they are worse for the earth.
2. According to Glamour magazine, approximately 14 regular plastic grocery bags equals one mile of gas for a car. To put it another way, according to the Sierra Club, when one ton of plastic bags are reused or recycled it saves 11 barrels of oil!
3. Do you like animals? How about nature? Both are constantly getting littered with bags. Worse yet, sometimes animals get trapped in them and die. That sucks.
4. In 2007 San Francisco became the first US city to ban petroleum-based plastic bags. (They will allow reusable totes, recyclable paper bags and corn-based plastic bags.) According to National Geographic, there are more than 500 million bags are created each year in the US and a trillion worldwide! It has become such a nuisance and problem that some countries have banned them: Ireland, Taiwan, South Africa, Australia and Bangladesh.
5. In fact, even the EPA advises that Americans use reusable cloth shopping bags rather than paper or plastic!

The Rag:

Check out Natalie’s post on having a “greener” period.

Green Dry Cleaning:

Green dry cleaners don’t use the toxic chemicals of traditional cleaners and are therefore better for the environment and for you. And in 2007 Las Vegas welcomed it’s first green cleaners! The Siren gets nothing for plugging them except the satisfaction of spreading the word on a worthy business. Check it out: It’s called Green Cleaners, 9555 S. Eastern, #100. (In the strip mall on the west side of Eastern between Silverado Ranch and Serene.)

Fair Trade:

It’s mostly about improving the quality of life for people in some of the world’s poorest countries. But there’s some environmental benefit, too.

The Christmas Corner:

My favorite part about the holidays is decorating my home, parties and sending out holiday cards. But I don’t want to wreck the environment in the name of good tidings and cheer. Luckily, you don’t have to be a Scrooge to celebrate green. And hey, some of these tips can even save you some money — sweet!

• Deck the halls, not the landfills: Between Thanksgiving and New Year’s Day, Americans throw away an additional one million tons of garbage each week, including all those pretty wrappings. Buy recycled gift-wrap or use gift bags, which can be re-used (but hold the tissue paper because that can’t be recycled).
• The Giving Tree: Environmentalist are touting live trees now because they are grown on tree farms that replant each year so there’s very little damage to the ecosystem. Fake trees require a lot of energy and petroleum products to make, so they’ve fallen out of favor. But I think if you already have a fake tree, might as well use it. Throwing it out would be even more wasteful (see the first bullet). If you do get a live tree, remember to recycle it at the end of the season.
• Think LEDs: If you’re in the market for new holiday lights, go with LEDs. They’re 90 percent more efficient than traditional incandescent lights; they can last about 200,000 hours; and they remain cooler to the touch than traditional styles, making them less of a safety hazard. According to the US Dept. of Energy, if everyone replaced their conventional lights with LEDs, it could save at least two billion kilowatt-hours of electricity, or enough to power 200,000 homes for a year.
• Time it right: Set your electronic holiday decor on timers. It will save you money on your electric bill and save you the time and worry of running around turning on/off all your stuff.
• Bag it: Bring your own reusable shopping bags for your holiday shopping forays. No need to bring home more petroleum-based plastic bags. Better yet, give a few reusable shopping bags as gifts (or wrap a present in one) to spread the eco-love.
• Holiday cheer: Forgo plastic/paper dishes and cutlery for the real deal. You’ll save money and eco-resources as well as space in the landfill.
• Seasons greetings: Buy recycled cards or makes some yourself. Or use photo-sharing websites or blogs to go electronic with your greetings this year. And when all is said and done, consider donating your old cards to charity groups that reuse them to make new cards.
• Reduce, Reuse, Recycle: Limit shopping trips by combining trips as much as possible. (With gas at$3.25+ a gallon, there’s a big savings incentive here.) Carpool with other shoppers. When buying gifts, look for items with less packaging. Reuse holiday decor, gift wrap or anything else you can. And definitely recycle — trees, paper, packaging, etc.