Easy Eco Mondays - Take Out

The best thing about living in Vancouver is that around every corner is a great restaurant! I love exploring different places and finding some good 'regulars'. My main vice is sushi, I could eat it morning, noon and night, and after a good swim, it is almost impossible to resist!

The other weekend, on the way home from skiing we all had a sushi craving, and before I could think twice, the food was ordered and we were making a detour to go pick it up! We picked up food for 5, took it home, divided it up and devoured the tasty bites! But when it was all said and done, there was a large mound of plastic sitting on the table. I felt gross, which might have been compounded from eating way too quickly, but the sight of all the containers was not that pleasing either!

Via Flickr

So what to do? I love my take out and I don't know what life would be like without it, but the waste (i.e. Styrofoam) that goes into every meal, is making me feel guilty. Are there any options? Can I have my take out and be green too?

I don't have much to offer in terms of solutions, maybe someone else has some insight?


The only solutions I can ponder up are:


1) Eat less take out, or eat in the restaurant.

2) See if you can bring Tupperware to the restaurant and transfer the food from a plate to your container. I believe there are some health issues with this, and many restaurants are not okay with this, but if you know the employees really well, there might be a way that this method could work.

3) Re-use the containers. My sushi container is usually (licked) clean when I am done with it, so why not pack my lunch sandwich in it? Or make it into a planter, as seen here...


4) Encourage your favourite restaurant to use biodegradable take out containers. Its been done here, here and here, however they have their limitations

Do you eat take out? Have you found a solution for the packaging? Any suggestions for my sushi take out dilemma?

Easy Eco Mondays - Bus Passes

If you don't already have a bus pass can I suggest trying one out for a month? I just bought one March 1st and I have already used it way more than I expected to. I am almost giddy when I can hop on the back of the bus and don't have to wait in line at the front to stuff my change into that little money slot and ask for a transfer. I feel like I have just been accepted into this secret mass transit society, I just wish we all had a secret hand shake!

Argentinian Bus Tickets via Black Pearl Press

So join the club and see how many different ways you can hop on the back of the bus!

Easy Eco Mondays - Give Plants with Roots

A lot of lucky ladies (and some men) received bouquets of flowers this February...an estimated 180 million stems of roses. Stunning when first received, as the week progresses, they will start to droop and wilt. If you take very good care of your cut flowers, change the water every other day, keep the stems cut and give them flower food, they can last up to 2 weeks. But in the life cycle (seed, growth, transport, your counter) two weeks is a short period.

So are there alternatives? Well there were some great posts on paper flowers (although at the moment I can only find one!), but if fake isn't really your thing, you might want to think about potted plants. Now I must admit this is coming from a bias source, I think we have over 20 plants in our apartment! Don't get me wrong, I don't have a huge green thumb (I am extremely efficient at killing plants - I think we are down a handful since moving in 6 months ago.) but I do love the warmth and colour plants bring to a space!

So what to buy? Well there are many potted plants that flower and can be found at your local grocer, however they tend to flower once and then slowly die off. This process does take longer than 2 weeks so they are a step above cut flowers. Another step above would be a potted plant that flowers annually, or one that doesn't flower. These last for as long as the recipient can take care of them for. Cacti and arid environment plants do the best if you suspect that your loved one won't water them very well, while ones that love shade are good for indoor spaces that don't have direct light. Usually your local florist will tell you what would work best for each situation and what plants work best for where you live.

All these inspiring images are from the talented Katja at Nestled In her plant photos inspire me to work on my non green thumb!

Easy Eco Mondays - Transportation Habits

My work calender has a sustainable tip each month, and I thought I would share... February's focus is on Transportation. This is what it reads:

"Change your habits so that living green isn't a daily task but a natural behaviour. If everyone left their car at home one day a week it would make a huge difference. Biking is good for your health (and possible here in February!!) and the health of the planet. Don't like to ride a bicycle? Try walking, walking just 30 minutes a day has numerous health benefits, including lowering blood pressure, boosting good cholesterol and reducing your risk of a stroke. Share a ride one or two days a week and you'll get to know a neighbour or co-worker better, save fuel and reduce your carbon footprint."

Via Copenhagen Cycle Chic

I think the tip is trying to portray that it only takes minimal extra effort to make a environmentally sustainable transportation decision. The difference between talking about it and actually doing it is small. 10 extra minutes of planning can make your environmental wants a reality...

Check out this guy - he is training for a Marathon by actually running all of his errands! Via TreeHugger

If driving is the only way to work, then try and be more sustainable in other transportation areas, walk to get your groceries, or run errands. I know I am going to take transit more even though it is longer. Today I spent the time on the bus reading instead of trying to dodge poor drivers. I also just remembered that one of my co-workers lives near me, I am going to ask her today if she would like a ride tomorrow. It's the little things that really add up!

Easy Eco Mondays - Be fish Aware

Since moving to Vancouver I have developed an appreciation for fish... not only because they are tasty and so readily available here, but more that they are almost intertwined with life. Fish design, and drawing are found everywhere, while remnants of fish can also be found washed up on the shore. This constant reminder makes me question... what fish (or seafood) can be consumed in a sustainable fashion? I am of course not the only person wondering this so I went on the hunt for some resources.

Keller + Keller

Jocelyne Beaudoin

• David Suzuki's Green Guide has some top choices: Catfish (US farmed), Clams (farmed), Halibut (wild, pacific), Pollock (wild, Alaska), Rainbow Trout (farmed) and Tilapia (US farmed).
• The Environmental Defense Fund also has a list of fish ranging from Eco-Best to Eco-Worst. Everything from Mussels to Crab to Shark are on the list. They also have a sushi fish list.
• Monteryey Bay Aquarium has a Seafood Watch Pocket Guide and now a feature where you can have it synced to your iphone, so you are up to date and can make informed decisions on the go.
• Foodgal a fellow blogger even recommended a sustainable sushi bar Tataki Sushi and Sake Bar in San Fransisco (if you are every visiting)

As I go out to buy my weekly groceries, I will keep the Seafood Watch guideline close to me!

Victoria Granof

(Note: This week is the State of the Salmon Conference here in Vancouver, it is the second international conference dedicated to the conservation of Pacific salmon. Fitting time to be thinking about fish consumption!)

Easy Eco Mondays - 3 Rs sign

Make a beautiful sign to remind you of the 3 Rs Reduce - Reuse - Recycle!

I love this post from ModCottage. It goes through step by step of how to make these awesome signs. It would be ideal to make it like Em does, with re-used wood!!

Stirring Light

Doesn't this look like this chandelier should be in the foyer of a theater? Something you come out onto during the opera intermission....

But wait it is made from stir sticks! I am so glad to hear that someone has found a use for one of the most wasteful and useless items on the planet! (Even if it is kind of 80s)

Easy Eco Mondays - Go Stir stick less

How long do you use a stir stick for? Two, maybe three seconds? Is it really worth it? Especially if the stir stick is plastic! So next time you grab a coffee, consider slowly rotating your cup, using something you already have in your purse (like a pen - that you wash) or asking for a spoon.

Photography by Mr Trona

Think of how much plastic you can save from the landfills! Unless you want to keep them and make this.... (See next post!)

Easy Eco Mondays - Rabit Food

Try out more vegetarian meals.

Eating meat (or animal based products) has a larger carbon footprint than eating plant based food. (I'll give you stats tomorrow) However, most North Americans meals center around meat. For me, there is usually one meat product in each of my lunch and dinner. I choose meat to keep my protein intake up because it is easy to cook, even though I know there are high protein meat alternatives out there! I tried cooking lentils a couple times before with the results were dismal at best. If only I knew how to cook protein rich vegetable based foods! And I am sure I am not the only one to lament about this! So what to do? Well, the answer is at my finger tips!

Many of the recipe websites (All Recipes, Cooks.com, Recipe Zaar, and Epicurious) out there contain a large number of vegetarian recipes, or meatless section, as well there are websites dedicated solely to vegetarian cooking.

Here are 5 vegetarian websites with many positive reviews:

• VegWeb
• GoVeg
• Savvy Vegetarian
• VegCooking
• The Vegetarian Journal

Don't these dishes look yummy?

Easy Eco Monday - Watch Planet in Peril

I was just watching CNNs show Planet in Peril and wow is it powerful. Yes I know it is sensationalized, but some images are very powerful on their own... Regardless, it's super entertaining and makes you think... I wish I had someone to give it to for Christmas, they have it on DVD which would be perfect for people like me, who can't seem to make it home regularly enough to watch a show consistently. If you are more organized than I am its on CNN at 8pm on Saturday and Sunday nights you can also check it out some clips here or buy/download the DVD!

Going Beyond Green with Reusable Bags

I was referred to the blog This Time is Now by Emma's Design Blogg, and what an amazing blog it is! One of the posts Transformed reminded me of a project that Commercial Drive does. Commercial Drive is a vibrant neighbourhood in Vancouver with great initiatives. There are street banners hanging from the lamp posts, which eventually get retired. However instead of throwing them out, they 'transform' them into reusable shopping bags.


Because the banners are always colourful and festive, the bags inevitably are bright and cheery. And if the colour doesn't cheer you up, then the thought that you are saving 1.77 tons of CO2 emissions a year, or that all the proceeds from the sale of these bags are re-invested into the community to build new green spaces might!

Easy Eco Mondays - Learn to be Green Gifts

Do you still have a few people that you still need to buy Christmas presents for? Why not an inspirational eco book. Pack it up with organic healthy baking, or some home-made cleaning supply and voila, an inexpensive eco present that will hopefully have a ripple effect... If you give this present to multiple friends in the same group, buy them all different books and then you can all share them!

Here are some books that sound good to me...

1. Ecoholic: Your Guide to the Most Environmentally Friendly Information Products and Service in Canada by Adria Vasil


2. David Suzuki's Green Guide by David Suzuki ad David R. Boyd


3. The Green Collar Economy: How One Solution Can Fix Our Two Biggest Problems by Van Jones and Ariane Conrad

4. 100 Mile Diet: A Year of Local Eating By Alisa Smith and J.B. Mackinnon


5. True Green: 100 Everyday Ways You can Contribute to a Healthier Planet by Kim McKay and Jenny Bonnin

Easy Eco Monday - Visual Reminders

I got this idea today while logging into Hotmail. On the home pages, there is a link to "Hell On Earth - Ecological Disaster Tourism" - locations to visit if you want to witness some of the world’s worst man-made disasters for yourself.

While the idea of spending my holiday in an ecological disaster didn't sound too convincing, I thought about what a great impact it would have on my life... but I wondered if the impact would wear off and I would go back to some of my bad eco habits? If so, how would I make sure to avoid this? Well my solution for this is to have images up around the house in locations where I do most of my bad habits such as in the kitchen, in front of the garbage, beside my car keys, near my computer and printer, or in my wallet for every time I want to buy a bottle of water. I would hope that those visual reminders would keep me in line....

So until I take a holiday to an ecological disaster, here are some images that I could use in the mean time.....

Re-wood

Scrapile

Recently Haute*Nature has profiled two companies that make fabulous furniture out of scrap material. Scrapile and Oormerk have sleek designs, where the 'multicultural' wood adds intriguing dimension to the pieces! Oormerk is based in the Netherlands, and Scrapile is based in Brooklyn New York.

Oormerk via Design Boom

Scrapile

And you can even purchase items from Scrapile in Canada! You will have to make a trip to Montreal, but hey, anything for a company who has a logo like this! (Scrapile's Logo)

Easy Eco Mondays - Phantom Energy

To follow up on my post on charging stations, I wanted to address the issue of having chargers or electronics constantly plugged in. It is arguable as to how much Phantom Energy is used by leaving chargers plugged in, however I am still a firm believer that every little bit counts! Below is a list of ways to combat this from easy to moderately involved.

1. Unplug the power cord for your electronic or charger from the wall every time you are not using the product.


2. Before leaving on a long trip, unplug all electronics and chargers.


3. Add an on-off switch to your wall socket. They cost about 15 dollars from Home Depot and work wonders. I think their main purpose is for rooms where you don’t have an overhead light but you want to be able to turn a lamp on as soon as you walk in the room. However it would also work well if you had all your electronics plugged into one of these. You would just switch off the outlet when you leave the room.


4. Smart Strip Power Strips. (As introduced to me here by Beth) They have three different types of outlets; one is the Control, some are Automatic, and some are Constants. It works like this: You plug most of your items into Automatic outlets, then you choose an electronic to control the power to your Automatics and plug that into your Control outlet. Whenever you turn off your Control electronic, it cuts the power to all your Automatic electronics. You also have some Constants which are not affected by the control electronic. I think this would make sense the most in a home entertainment unit.


5. Have your outlets wired so that the power to them can be turned on and off by a switch on the wall. This would work quite well for the room you have the TV and stereo in. One flick of the switch and all of your electronics would be turned off!

Hopefully one of these ideas gets you unplugging!

Buy less, DIY more.

I am feeling rather uninspired these days and not from lack of inspirational material; Desire to Inspire, and Apartment #34 have been posting some lust worthy items fore sure! It is just that maybe it doesn’t feel right to lust with the economic turmoil. So I tried to remedy this by looking for some fun DIYs and before and afters on Design*Sponge. And so it is a few DIYs that have started to lift me from my inspiration dry spell and I will share today. Hopefully these can be incorporated into my imaginary living situation to be described next week!

So enjoy these DIYs

The wood clock from Design*Sponge

Design Sponge

I love how this rustic clock can still look crisp clean and modern. I would probably put more numbers on the clock than just 12, but I just love the idea.

The log candle holders - here and here

This idea originally came from my mom, who found a log on the side of the road and dragged it back to our cabin. She explained to me her vision – to have the log standing on its end, and to have 3 large diameter candles sunk into the the top of the wood (by drilling out holes). She would then leave it outside as and light it when we had guests coming over.

Gathering Moss

Unfortunately my dad, not knowing this idea threw out the log, and so the project was never completed. However it had me thinking, has anyone else done this? I searched a bit online and found these two DIYs; they aren’t quite what my mom had described, but still a great idea!

DIY Network

The rustic chandelier

The Chandelier Blog

This appears like it could be a made for minimal effort and skill (which I like!) but still have make a great bold peice! I wonder how it would look with branches that still have the bark on them? And what would it look like with LEDs? Or with fern leaves hanging outside? The posibilites are endless!

Do you notice a trend with these DIYs? They relate to a post I am working on for next week... stay tuned!

Sweater Season Re-Purposed

I just couldn't help but post about these cute items by plytextiles on Etsy. These were just posted on Apartment Therapy today, and it just seemed fitting since I am back at work in the cold arctic! If only I could have a pair of those Favourite Mittens sent up here!

And look what colour combination I found! I love how two different shades of yellow were used, they really make those cubes 3D!

Easy Eco Mondays - Carbon Footprint

Carbon neutral – I am sure we have all heard of it. But what does it really mean? From doing a bit of reading, I put it into this analogy…. If the earth was my body and carbon was calories, it would be striving to maintain your current weight. In other words, when I that extra scoop of ice cream (my weakness), I have to make sure to fit in a workout that day. It is the same thing with the planet, when we produce emissions into the atmosphere (ice cream), we should then “exercise” back to carbon neutral. But what is exercise for the earth? Well it can be planning a tree, or composting – but many of times that doesn’t go far enough – so we buy carbon credits (or offsets).

The Carbon Neutral concept hit close to home when I started my new work project – I fly to and from site every two weeks. It was on my first flight to site that I decided to look into Carbon Credits. The best resource I have found is from David Suzuki’s website. He breaks it down quite nicely:

“Here's how it works: if you add polluting emissions to the atmosphere, you can effectively subtract them by purchasing 'carbon offsets'. Carbon offsets are simply credits for emission reductions achieved by projects such as wind farms, solar installations, or energy efficiency retrofits. You can purchase these credits and apply them to your own emissions to reduce your net climate impact.” - David Suzuki Foundation

Net climate impact…humm… I have never really thought about my net climate impact… adding up all of my carbon emissions, not just for one day, but say for a whole year! I’m not sure I am ready to face that figure (just like I can’t go bathing suit shopping after Christmas!) But let’s break down my net climate impact for these extra plane rides. David Suzuki’s website has some great resources including this one, which calculates your emissions from driving, flying or you home and offers a dollar amount of Carbon Offsets you need to buy (And it’s a Canadian website!!)

grahamowen.com

My emissions for a round trip flight to Yellowknife (closest Airport to site) from Vancouver (with a stop in Edmonton) are 0.88 tonnes. To off set these emissions could cost me as little as $11.55. That would be the cost of packing my lunch for the trip instead of buying it at the airport! (Although, if you do offset high altitude impacts and only buy a Gold Standard offset then you can be paying up to $34.54, still not completely unreasonable – especially since Westjet and Air Canada have just removed the fuel surcharge)

The only one issue comes when you actually have to buy these Carbon Offsets. You can’t go to the government and go here is my money now offset my carbon! It is a little more complicated… and worthy of it’s own post.

So until the next Eco Monday…. Have fun calculating your carbon emissions!

Anyone have some numbers to share?

California Environment Protection Agency

Extremely Easy Eco Monday - Old t-shirts

Sorry for the late post today - I haven't had a moment at my desek all day!

This post is extremely easy and I am sure that most of us already do it, but I thought I would re-iterate it since we use these on site all the time! Take your old cotton t-shirts and cut them into a few piece for rags. They soak up wet messes well, and are nice and soft for your nice furniture. I even use some to clean windows or mirrors! Here on site, we actually buy boxes of used tshirts, I assume the left over from thrift stores. They are everywhere on site, and are great in the trucks for when you need to check the oil. The best thing about them though, and reviewing the great oldschool logos on the tshirts - some really brighten your day!

TinyHappy

Easy Eco Mondays - Powerwise

So I look a little labour day holiday on my Eco Monday post - but I am back today - with a short but sweet post on Air Temperature

Powerwise

Has anyone seen the David Suzuki TV Powerwise commercials? They are pretty witty, but they convey simple messages on how to conserve everyday. Below is the one that I initially saw. You can watch them all at http://www.powerwise.ca/. This commercial is about keeping your a/c really low in the summer.... seriously - who wants a house at 20 degrees in the summer? I want to be able to walk around my house in shorts and a tee.... 25 degrees is a minimum for that!

On a side note: I used to remember at university where we would try and wait as long as possible before turning on the furnace. Some of my friends made it all the way into December, which is amazing for Kingston, Ontario.... I think my house only made it to the end of October..... But compared to how I just turn it on without thinking now of days - that's pretty great. So this fall, I am going to throw on one of those stylish sweaters and a pair of socks before I head to the thermostat!

Every degree counts!