Stuff You Don't Want

While I did grow up well after the time where rag and bone men cruised neighborhoods for scraps of fabric and metal, it doesn’t mean we didn’t respect the humble rag. When I was a kid and an item of clothing became too worn or stained it became fodder for my mother’s rag bag, to be cut up and used on cleaning days. I continue the tradition to this day. The fact is, fabric cleans a lot of surfaces (notably glass) much more effectively than paper towels, and it’s a great opportunity for reuse. Armed with a rag bag and some sponges, what do you need paper towels for, anyway? I use them solely for draining the grease out of my fake bacon. (The grease is very, very real, though the bacon is not.)

It is not that surprising that a few scraps of fabric are almost valueless to most people, since clothes have become so crazily inexpensive in the last hundred years that even individuals who live well below the poverty line often have extensive wardrobes, mostly consisting of cheaply-made clothes from sweatshop labor. Today the average American buys 60 items of clothing per year. When I worked with homeless teens about ten years ago even they could afford to be selective about what donated clothing items they would accept. They’d tell me stories of dumpster diving and finding clothing items with the tags still on. Getting into all that, however, is a post for another day.

So, for today, I’m just asking you to consider starting a rag bag, if you don’t have one already. Wouldn’t it be great if you could stop buying paper towels (which can’t be recycled, FYI)? Oh, how superior you’d feel to all those suckers in places like Home Depot that actually buy rags.

Oh, how your mirror will shine. (And they’re great for dusting, too.)

*Could make a great song. Someone get on that!

Two important points: (a) Recycling always comes with an environmental cost, even if it’s significantly less than the one from creating an item from virgin materials, and is nowhere near as good as limiting your unwanted trash/recycling in the first place, and, (b), just because you throw an item in a blue bin doesn’t mean it’s actually getting recycled.

So is it worth the effort to recycle at all? I’m going to take a look at some common categories and we’ll review.

Aluminum. Recycling aluminum cans is a fantastically efficient process with no obvious downside. It takes 95% less energy to produce a can from recycled materials than new stuff, which is probably why you could always get a nickel for these babies even before recycling came into vogue in its recent form. This one’s a no brainer.

Paper. Worldwide, the pulp and paper industry accounts for 4% of the world’s energy use, and uses more water to produce a ton of product than any other industry. Plus, paper is made out of trees, and trees are pretty useful to have around to take in carbon dioxide (to combat global warming), provide habitat for animals, and put treehouses in. (Clearcutting forests to make a bunch of brochures probably isn’t going to fall into the “worth it” pile in fifty years.) According to Earth Greetings, recycled paper uses 36% less energy consumption and 44% fewer greenhouse gases than virgin paper, and those are significant numbers. Also, the argument goes that paper that goes directly to the landfill emits methane, a greenhouse gas, as it decomposes. One ton of paper = 1.38 tons of Co2. (Though it’s not clear when and if this actually happens, given studies that show landfills don’t allow for enough oxygen for anything to really break down, so put this in the maybe pile.)

While recycling paper is worth it, it requires a lot of energy and water to either recycle paper or make it from trees, so use both sides and limit your use of paper where you can. When you do recycle your paper, know that China will take it, and that fact has made this woman rich.

Glass. Glass is made out of sand, which is pretty awesome, if you stop to think about it. Not only that, but it is pretty much infinitely recyclable. Recycling glass is only 21% more energy efficient than making new glass, which may not sound like much compared to the efficiency of aluminum, but if you worked for a company and had an idea that was going to make things 21% more efficient, I’d guess you’d be in for a big fat raise come performance review time. Because glass is heavy and thus requires a lot of fuel to transport from one place to another, it’s possible that there are specific situations (like being hundreds of miles away from a recycling location) where it might make sense to throw away glass bottles rather than recycling them. However, unless you are in such a specific situation, I would advise always recycling your glass. I would also always advise choosing glass over plastic when the choice is available, because glass is made from a plentiful source, is inert, and poses no real threat to anyone outside of a barroom fight. Whereas plastic, its most likely substitute, sucks.

Plastic. Plastic is light, versatile, and a serious environmental problem. Plastic recycling doesn’t even really exist, not in the way that people think. While an aluminum can can go on to many lives as another aluminum can, and the same goes for glass bottles, your plastic water and beverage bottles are “downcycled” into other products, like patio furniture and car parts — almost always items that are a dead-end, recycle-wise. I guess that’s better than nothing, but that means every time a bottle is manufactured virgin materials are being used — which in this case is crude oil, and all the problems that entails.

Much of it ends up in the oceans and forms the Great Pacific Garbage Patch and the North Atlantic Garbage Patch, which both feature floatable plastic debris spread over a significant, hard-to-measure area. While these phrases bring to mind a massive area with endless pieces of plastic clearly visible to the naked eye, and that’s not quite accurate, it’s still pretty offputting. Plastic is also responsible for polluting many a formerly pristine beach, like Hawaii’s Kamilo Beach, which gets about 15-20 tons of trash a year washed in from the ocean. The most direct victims of all this plastic are seabirds, who mistake it for food and eat it. This plastic gets stuck in their stomachs,
leaving no room for actual food. A study from 2005 shows that 95% of all fulmars washed up dead at the North Sea contained fragments of plastic.

There are also studies from the Center for Disease Control that show possible health risks from some type of plastic use, notably polycarbonates (marked #7 on the bottom), which can leach a potentially harmful chemical into your food.

In a lot of ways, I wish there were no “recycling” program for plastics, because I think that would make people think twice before buying or acquiring it. I think it’s pointless enough to be almost a feel-good exercise, which is why I’m pretty haphazard about throwing my shampoo bottles into the blue bin. It’s far more important to minimize your contact with the plastics industry than to “recycle” your own plastic, because if you’re creating a market for this stuff, that means more plastic blown out of recycling and garbage trucks and into the streets, more overturned shipping containers full of plastic products or nurdles that go directly into the ocean, and more seabirds with their bellies full of plastic.

If you think I’m anti-plastic, you should check out the website of this woman who has almost completely eliminated her plastic use since 2007.

Also, limit your rinsing out of recycled items to the bare minimum. This is solely to keep away pests and has no impact on the recycling process itself. Conserving water is always worth it!

If you still have any burning questions about recycling, let me know, because I’m going to try to interview someone from the LA County Recycling Program in the next few days.

While the underlying motivation of this site is definitely environmental, efficiency is also a serious consideration, and there’s a substantial amount of overlap between the two areas. I can’t claim that I’ve accomplished every goal I’ve ever had, but I am generally responsible and goal-oriented, and if I say I’m going to make a series of dinosaur sculptures out of papier måche, get ready to see a shoddily-conceived ankylosaurus that takes up half my coffee table which you’re going to have to come up with something polite to say about. Below are my get-things-done secrets; may you use them wisely.

1. If you think of something you need to do which will take five minutes or less, do it right now.

2. Don’t buy placeholder items. If you need a set of dishes and you see one that you don’t particularly like at Target and think you’ll buy them and use them temporarily until you find a set you really like — don’t. Put in the time to get a set that is of good quality that you really enjoy. You can keep them happily for many years, and you don’t have to deal with getting rid of the placeholder item.

3. Maintain. Get your teeth cleaned, get your oil changed, polish your shoes once in a while. Clean your wood floors every week or so. Eat some vegetables. It’ll all save you time in the end.

4. If you think of something that has to be done that will take 10-15 minutes, do it by the end of the day, or tomorrow at the latest.

5. Do one more thing than you planned on every day.

6. You should not have paid storage unless you are (a) temporarily moving out of the country or (b) running a business which requires it. Unpaid storage areas (like attics or garages) should contains only items that you use, but infrequently, like camping equipment, Christmas decorations, or painting stuff. If you have furniture, clothes, or old toys in there, get rid of them.

7. Try to figure out what you are doing that is a waste of time, and stop doing it. When I turned 40 I stopped reading introductions in books and balancing my checkbook. So far, so good.

8. Working on something for ten minutes right now is better than an hour tomorrow.

9. Don’t buy something for an anticipated need, only for an existing need. I’m not saying you can’t buy a new shirt once in a while for variety’s sake. But don’t buy a parka because it’s on sale and going to Antarctica’s on your bucket list; wait until you have the ticket in hand.

10. Buy quality items without a lot of moving parts. A basic toaster will last forever; a blender/chopper/rice maker will lose some of its capabilities at some point. Make sure it’s still going to be useful to you when it does. And don’t buy a vacuum cleaner that needs bags. At some point you won’t be able to get them anymore, and the item will be obsolete.

11. Don’t spend extra money on something which isn’t going to matter. If I can buy a used paper shredder off craigslist for $15, is that going to make me less efficient or less happy than buying a new one at Staples? Doubtful.

12. Understand your priorities and act accordingly. If you really want to do something that is in your power, start on it right now. Do you dream of starting a clothing line? Whip out that sketchbook! Do you desperately miss your cousin who lives in Iowa who you haven’t seen since 1992? Get her on the phone. The less time you waste, the more you’ll have to spend on what really matters to you.

I hope you all accomplish your 2012 goals, whatever they are!

Do you compulsively change the oil in your car every 3,000 miles? It turns out you don’t have to and California has launched a campaign to wise people up. A typical newish car only requires an oil change every 7,500 or 10,000 miles — check this site  to look up the recommendations for your car, or just look at the manual, which I know is in your glove box under a non-working flashlight, an inkless pen, and a crumpled-up map of the city which you haven’t looked at since you got your GPS. Changing your oil less frequently is good for the environment and your fiscal bottom line! So in case I didn’t get you a gift this year, that’s it, baby!

I am also super pleased to let you Angelenos know that light rail is on the way to our fair city. Phase 2 of the project, which was approved in 2010, means the line will be extended from Culver City to the beach. Boiling this down to a more Nancy-centric interpretation, that means I may eventually be able to take light rail on my daily commute. I look forward to it!

Google is always looking for ways to use green energy to run their business, and has taken the recent step of investing $94 million in large-scale solar plants.  I really appreciate that Google is forward-thinking in this way, and sees these investments as not only socially responsible but good business. I hope this will inspire other corporations to go this same route.

One of the big underlying themes of this site is efficiency. If the earth is warming at an alarming rate, then the cost of that, in terms of unlivable parts of the world, a huge increase in storms, as well as the pollution that goes with most fossil fuel burning, to me, is simply not a worthwhile tradeoff. So since we all know it’s going that way, let’s just commit to solar and wind power, make sure public transportation is available, and stop buying so much crap from industries that are adding to our carbon footprint.

In this same vein, earlier this week I attended an event which had an accompanying food drive, and I made the decision not to participate. I don’t want to get all grinchy on you, because I fully appreciate the impulse that makes people want to help out others who are struggling during the holidays. Unfortunately, food drives are a super inefficient way to get food to people who need it. Only about half of this donated food gets used properly, often because the recipients don’t know what to do with the random items they receive. (Sadly, your vegetable broth and capers are not universally desired. And I can’t be the only one who’s struggled to cook an eggplant properly.)

Alternatively, if you send money directly to food banks, they can leverage it as much as 20:1  because they often have access to large amounts of surplus food from industry which they only have to pay a nominal handling fee for. Also, they know what they need and what items are most in demand, while you can only guess.

Why do food drives persist? I think it’s because (a) people prefer the personal touch and (b) many people feel that charitable organizations are inherently untrustworthy and can’t be trusted to use their money wisely, but feel like a can of peas can’t be misused.

While I’m sure there are charities out there that could be run more efficiently (and some that are even outright scams), since we live in the modern age, it’s just not that much trouble to look up non-profits on Charity Navigator to find one that suits you. If you’re looking to feed the hungry, Feeding America (which I sent $75 to instead of donating food earlier) has an excellent rating — 96% of donations going to program expenses — which is almost impossible and unheard of (and not fair to expect, honestly. Above 80% is pretty good.) It would be nice to think that every penny of the $50 sent to a non-profit means $50 worth of food/medicine/after school programs, but fundraising, office space and equipment and staff cost money. Just because it’s $40 or $45 going for actual program expenses itself doesn’t mean the other $10 is spent on hookers and blow. Most of the people I’ve known working for charities took their low-salaried jobs because of a commitment to the cause. Are you going to begrudge them staplers and toilet paper? I know I’m not.

If you want to locate some needy family on your own and drive over to them with a bag full of groceries, I think that’s great. But if you’re going to trust a third party to do the distribution for you, anyway, why not make their jobs easier and just send some cash? The idea of a hungry family hunkering down on Christmas with a box of stuffing and some peas you provided might be a nice one, but I hope you’ll make your decisions this holiday season based on what’s better for the people who stand to benefit from your charity, not for you.

Have a happy holiday season, everyone!

The U.N.s World Meteorological Organization reported today that the past decade is tied for the hottest on record, and reiterates that science proves unequivocally that the world is warming, and that the warming is the result of human activities. The International Energy Agency (IAE) warns that the world has five years to avoid serious climate change and extreme weather events. In short, we’re almost “locked in” for a 2 degree Celsius (3.6 degree Fahrenheit) increase, and after that it’s going to get ugly. ”One wonders how many more worrying figures the world needs,” commented Connie Hedegaard, the European Union’s climate commissioner. Indeed.

There are a few hopeful signs that some people are taking this seriously. Here in California, our governor recently signed a law requiring that 33% of our energy be from renewable sources by 2020, which U.S. Energy Secretary Steven Chu called a model for the nation. Unfortunately, we are still driving our fossil-fueled cars around like idiots, but in L.A., at least, public transportation is not a viable option for everyone. As a westsider, I keep hoping for the Subway by the Sea to kick in, but I can’t even find an inaccurate figure on when it’s going to be completed.

If any of the presidential candidates who claim that global warming isn’t really happening, doesn’t really matter, or requires more investigation before action is taken actually gets elected, it’s going to be really bad news for us all.

I was at Whole Foods the other day (buying a few sweet potatoes when I apparently really wanted yams, all very off topic but nonetheless frustrating) when I heard the guy in front of me complain to the cashier that charging ten cents for a carryout bag for his purchase was “highway robbery.” He was probably unaware that the city of Santa Monica, California now has a single-use carryout ban on plastic bags, and requires merchants to charge $0.10 apiece for paper bags.

When it was my turn I told that same cashier that I fully supported the bag ban and he informed me that it’s definitely changing people’s behavior (and not just by making them ruder, presumably). I was not surprised, since of course, this is the entire point of the ban. British retailer Marks & Spencer started charging for their plastic bags in 2008, and within ten weeks they were handing out 80% fewer bags. Similarly dramatic drops have been seen under the same conditions in China and San Francisco.

Why are plastic bags a problem? Producing them on this global scale is a massive waste of energy. An Australian study concluded in 2002 that “a year’s worth of weekly grocery trips, at 10 bags a trip, would result in embedded energy consumption of 210 megajoules—the equivalent of 1.75 gallons (6.6 liters) of gasoline, and emissions of 13 pounds (6.06 kilograms) of CO2.” [from National Geographic]

Plastic bags are also a big threat to marine wildlife. Animals get entangled in them; sea turtles eat them, mistaking them for jellyfish. Since they can’t digest them, there’s less room in their stomachs for actual food and they can starve to death.

I have been bringing my own bags to retailers for years, and, honestly, I just don’t think it’s that big of a deal to get everyone to do it. It’s not like the world hasn’t spent over a decade giving you those free reusable bags which are no doubt stuffed in the trunk of your car or somewhere in the back of your kitchen cabinets. Either way, please don’t take it out on the cashiers!

Happy Thanksgiving!

I know I left you hanging for a few days about the whole shower head situation. Oh, the agony I’ve put you through! Obviously, it’s incredibly inconsiderate.

But the good news is: it kind of worked. Lots of sediment came off the shower head when I soaked it in vinegar overnight, and it did seem to operate more efficiently the next day. So give it a try if you’re having trouble in this area!

Also, just wanted to mention that I ran across these cornstarch packing peanuts in Staples a few days ago. They are water soluble! Just a little reminder that polystyrene foam peanuts are totally played out. Don’t get left behind, and I don’t mean just rapture-wise.

I know what you’re thinking: what is Nancy doing this Friday night? If you guessed cleaning my shower head and watching DVR’ed episodes of Millionaire Matchmaker, good guess and please stop stalking me. But, yes, I’d noticed that I wasn’t getting great water pressure from my shower, and rather than toss my old shower head into the trash I decided to follow these instructions and soak it in vinegar overnight to remove the built-up mineral deposits that are probably clogging it up.

The nice thing about this solution is that it doesn’t require any actual skill, and there’s little downside, since pouring vinegar down your drain is a good way to keep it clean. (I also recommend a plumbing snake which should be used regularly to keep things flowing. Anything to avoid noxious Drano-type products or an expensive call to a plumber.)

I’ll let you know how it works out.

When I was a kid, by a week after Halloween my candy haul would be down to some Smarties, a couple of Tootsie rolls, and a pack of Necco wafers that I would eat only begrudgingly and not even enjoy. But you know what I’d have plenty of? Candy wrappers.

To avoid this waste, you can collect all your candy wrappers and those of your neighbors and friends and send them to Terracycle. They take wrappers and packaging and make them into bags and picture frames.  This part of their program is sponsored by Mars/Wrigley and Cadbury, and their FAQ is a dead link, so I can’t suss out if they’ll take wrappers from their competitors as well. I’m going to guess not.

I have to admit to some skepticism about the whole enterprise, since I can’t tell without examining these items how many wrappers actually go into them, and how much of it is just new plastic. But giving them the benefit of the doubt it seems like a decent collection project for a school or scout group, especially since they do pay .02 cents. If anyone uses them, let me know how it goes!

P.S. Don’t feel bad about your candy-eating ways. A new study shows that people who like sweets may be sweeter than those who don’t.  And FYI, it’s easier on your teeth to eat a bunch of candy at once and then lay off for a while then to parcel it out piece by piece at regular intervals. That’s because streptococcus bacteria likes to feed on it and they excrete acids that eat away at your tooth enamel; the fewer times they have to come out and play, the better.