Something New to Read

For Christmas, my aunt visited her local used book store and picked up my gift there. I'm just starting this new-to-me book, and so far I'm really enjoying it. It's called Not Buying It by Judith Levine.

It's all about this woman (who happens to be a writer, so it's easy on the reader) who decides she and her life-partner, Paul, have had it with the consumer driven society that we've built around ourselves. So, in 2004, she and Paul go a year without shopping. So far, it's been thought-provoking. It's written like a journal, with entries every so often about what they are missing and what they are learning about what it is like to break away from the expectations we have about ourselves and the stresses of the consumer market. I've only read the first two chapters, but so far I'm very intrigued as the rules start to unfold as to what "not buying it" means to this couple and how their journey will present itself.

My coworker, Andree', is doing her own sort of "not buying it" experiment where she can't buy anything new except for essentials and things that get used up. (Things like food, obviously, and like changing the oil in her car: something that must be done to maintain the car and is used up. You can't buy used motor oil!) And she is excited to read this one as well. It has been fun comparing the two missions of "not buying it."

Mostly, I'm excited about this book and I wanted to share. I'll let you know how it goes from here!

Urban Agriculture

It seems that sustainability and providing for yourself is catching on. The University of Utah is offering an "Urban Agriculture" series through their Life-Long Learning community education classes. I just got a flier in the mail about it over the weekend, and the classes look pretty fun and educational.

The flier states "with so many tangible benefits, Urban Agriculture is experience a huge increase in popularity. By growing and cultivating your own food, you can save money, help the environment, foster better health and nutrition, develop another source of income, ensure food security, and even boost your community social life." Urban Agriculture certainly has many benefits to enrich many facets of your life. I'm just excited that such a large institution like the U of U has embraced the Urban Agriculture mindset by highlighting these classes in their own sub-section.

Some of the classes offered include Bee Keeping, Coops de Ville: How to Raise Backyard Chickens, Fabulous Fruit Trees, Vegetable Gardening Basics, Sell Your Produce, Eating Local, and Grow Your Own Herbs. All of these sound like fun to me, but I think I'm going to check out the how to "Grow Your Own Herbs" class due my current rental condition (i.e. lack of yard space to garden) as a good place to start my next step of the sustainable, health and nutrition, life-enriching journey. So if you live in the Salt Lake area and these sound fun, check it out.

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If you can PLUG it in...Put it In!

Salt Lake City is hosting an electronic waste recycling event (e-waste) this Saturday! If you have electronics sitting around the house, don't throw them out! GRX is the recycler for the event and they are accepting all electronics. This service is free to all Salt Lake City residents. (Other residents may be charged a recycling fee.)

This event is being held on:

Saturday, January 10th
10:00 am - 2:00 pm

In the parking lot on 1300 South and West Temple (across from Franklin Covey Field)

For more information on e-waste recycling, please visit www.grxrecycles.com or if you have any questions about this event, contact Bridget Stuchly at bridget.stuchly@slcgov.com or call (801) 535-6438.

Weekend Extravaganza

There's a reason why people don't typically move into a new apartment in the middle of December. I mean, have any of you moved during that time? I guess usually it's in the middle of the school year and finals week, Christmas break, and all that, but still I don't think I know of anyone that has moved in the middle of the winter...because it's too cold!

Your fingers freeze carrying boxes, you have to keep shoveling the sidewalk, and it's icy. To make it easier to move things in and out, you usually keep the front door open, which makes it cold inside. There are many battles to moving in general, but December is not a good time. Now that I'm not confined by the school schedule, I said, "Hey, this is a great place. I'll take it!" Without thinking this through. I don't recommend moving in the winter if it can be avoided.

But, one things for sure: If your furniture wont make it up the stairs, get a little creative and string it up with your climbing rope and haul it over the balcony!

Switch 'Em Out!

One of the ways to green up your life a little bit (and would make a great New Year's resolution) is to really think about and start saving some electricity. There are many ways to do this. One is to switch out all your light bulbs from incandescent to compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFL's). The easiest way to do this is to buy a pack of CFL's and replace your incandescents as they burn out, and then vow to never buy an incandescent light bulb again!

CFL's cost more than incandescent light bulbs do up front, but they also last about ten times longer. And the energy that they consume is about 75% less than incandescents as well. According to livescience.com, replacing one incandescent bulb with a CFL reduces CO2 gas by about 500 lbs. per year. CFL's use the electricty that is pouring into them to produce light, while incandescent light bulbs expound a lot of heat while also producing light. Most of the energy that is used by incandescent light bulbs produces heat, instead of light, which is why CFL's are so much more energy efficient.

The trick with CFL's, however, is how to dispose of them. Never throw them away!! In order for CFL's to be so energy efficient, they must be made with small amounts of mercury. If they are just thrown into the landfill, this murcury can accumulate and seep into the earth and pollute ground water. So use some caution when handling CFL's and when disposing them, always take them to a recycling center. If you live in Salt Lake County, you can take your spent CFL's to these "hot spot" Salt Lake County Libraries:

• Bingham Creek, 4834 W. 9000 South, West Jordan.
• Calvin Smith, 810 E. 3300 South, Millcreek.
• Whitmore, 2197 E. Fort Union Blvd. (about 7000 South), Cottonwood Heights.
• Draper, 1136 E. Pioneer Road (12400 South), Draper.
• Hunter, 4740 W. 4100 South, West Valley City.
  
• Magna, 8339 W. 3500 South, Magna.
• South Jordan, 10673 S. Redwood Road (1700 West), South Jordan.
• R.V. Tyler, 8041 Wood St. (55 West), Midvale.
• or if you don't want to head over to your local library like the ones above, you can recycle them at the Salt Lake Valley Solid Waste Management Facility, 6030 W. California Ave, or the Trans-Jordan Cities Landfill, 10873 S. 7200 West, in South Jordan

Another option, and this applies nationally, is to take them down to any Home Depot or Ikea store. Both franchises have the facilities to recycle CFL's properly. To find out where to recycle CFL's in your area, visit the EPA's website. To check out some safety tips on how to clean up broken CFL's and how to recycle them properly, check it out here.

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Christmas Tree Debate

It's that time of year when Christmas trees are going up or, like my family, have been up for weeks. Heated debates about whether fresh-cut trees or artificial trees are more sustainable abound. And, I admit, I'm not sure of the whole thing myself. Everything has its pros and cons.

My coworker, Andree', put up a nice post on my work blog, Green Fork, that offers some intriguing arguments both for and against both Christmas tree options. I encourage you to check it out, and think about it.

I think Andree' sums up a lot of the debate nicely:

"Bottom line... Whatever you choose, remember to keep in mind what is important to you and what is good for the environment. Awareness is key! If you feel strongly to keep on the tradition of the live tree, do it, there are good arguments for it. If you love Aunt Hilda's fake pink tree that was passed on to you, kudos for reusing. If you don't mind being nontraditional, inventory what trees and shrubs you'd like in your yard and have your Christmas Tree serve two purposes."

But I also think that the comment we received at the end of the article includes a nice point. Remember the conversations about paper or plastic bags? Well, as Ron points out to us, the "paper or plastic" debate over the Christmas tree is similar to the paper or plastic debate for grocery bags. At the grocery store, we should really be bringing our own reusable bags every time we shop. So what does that mean for the Christmas tree? Well, you tell me. I'm thinking a little creativity and starting some new traditions might be good places to start, but there are pros and cons for everything.

Turkey-Day

Before the holiday weekend I was thinking about how great it was going to be to get in some extra time to put up some great posts...and well...you can see how that one went. The long weekend got going and I found myself spending a lot of time doing all types of fun things, but not posting. Here is a Turkey-Day recap:

I am a vegetarian. I have been so for about two years. My reasoning is not generally based on animal cruelty (though that is an added benefit) but more on environmental impact. The idea is to eat lower on the food chain. My decision also comes with various health benefits and, as it turns out, is much cheaper too. But for this Thanksgiving my family bought a free-range organic turkey from a farm not too far from where I live as a special treat. So I decided to go for it and honestly, it wasn't as exciting as I was expecting it to be. We did our own brine-ing (a process where the whole turkey is essentially marinated in our own concoction of spices and other good-li-ness) and it was very tasty, but after two years I thought it would be more of a to-do.

As the day went on, though, I remembered that when I did eat meat all of the time, turkey wasn't my favorite on Thanksgiving. Sure, it was good, but I was much more happy eating my grandmother's rolls, my step-father's green bean casserole, and delving into my mom's mashed potatoes. The only thing the turkey was good for was the leftover sandwiches (only made with white bread of course--the only time of year we had white bread) for days to come. And as this Thanksgiving, complete with Turkey, went by with plenty of delicious white bread turkey sandwiches.

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