I’m off to a terrible start with Plastic Free July, since we’ve been out to eat three days in a row. Because of COVID, there is still a lot of single-use plastic in circulation. Our collective need for single-use plastic creates a lot of waste, but it also creates a lot of demand for the component materials, one of which is natural gas.
This spring I was asked to give a keynote speech at my alma mater and tell a group of physics students about the last fifteen years of my life since graduation. I was flattered, of course, but also baffled because when I was in school, my grades were not the best and I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life.
Papers are where my hoarding tendencies come into play, and the pile I assembled at the beginning of this week rivaled my mountain of clothes in Week 2. It took a lot of time and energy to make it through everything in this category, and I’m aware that although I’m already at the halfway point, it’s only going to get harder from here.
No, Marie Kondo never said you should limit yourself to 30 books. She wants you to keep what makes you happy, and for me that was most of my books. Although I kept most of what I already had, it allowed me to reacquaint myself with my collection and inspired my husband to go through his books. He was a little more merciless than I.
On this, the second anniversary of Radical Moderate, we will be looking into the traditional second anniversary gift: cotton. It is one of the most widely produced textiles on earth, with farms spread across multiple countries. Unfortunately, it usually requires a lot of land, water, and chemicals to produce. This post will look into consumer options and how to make the most responsible wardrobe choices.
After a month of immersive research into various lifecycle impacts of aluminum, steel, and asphalt shingles, we have come to a decision that incorporates product affordability, energy efficiency, ecological impacts, and recycling feasibility. I am confident that we made the best decision, and I am looking forward to the fact that I won’t have to think about roofs again for the next 50 years.
One of my favorite grad school projects was identifying and quantifying the various resource and energy inputs needed to create everyday items. While trying to figure out the break-even point between multiple disposable coffee cups and one reusable travel mug, I became hooked on trying to understand the factors at play in each decision I made moving forward… and the quest continues with my roof.
When making responsible purchases, it’s easier to factor in things we can see (e.g. packaging) over things we can’t, such as farming practices, cold storage, and transportation footprint. In doing research for this series, I’ve been learning how my own choices with respect to food purchases, while well-intentioned, were grossly misinformed, and how some choices count for a lot more than others.
As we approach November, we’re getting exposed to more and more BS in political campaigns. Fortunately, this is also the perfect time of year to make use of fertilizer to improve your lawn. This week we will look at the pros and cons of organic and inorganic fertilizers, focusing on one in particular that I’ve used on my lawn for years.
The vast majority of our clothes contain synthetic materials, i.e. plastics. If reducing plastic waste is your goal, limiting clothing containing synthetic fibers should be among your priorities. As with plastic materials in other parts of our lives, our approach with synthetic clothing should be (first) Reduce, (then) Reuse, and (last) recycle. This final post on Plastic-Free July suggests some options for responsible clothes shopping.