CEC Blog

Hello bloggers, This is Keith, current resident (with my wife, Sarah) of the Sustainable Living Demonstration Home at the Cope Center. We are loving our new digs and I decided I wanted to share a bit about how we are adjusting to “living sustainably”.

The biggest difference I have noticed is how recycling and composting have reduced the amount of waste we are producing. When we lived in Richmond we recycled but didn’t compost. The composting has been surprisingly easy, there is no odor and we’re actually growing green onions in our compost pile from the scraps we’ve thrown out. We empty the small bucket (kept under the sink) about once a week and we are slowly developing some great dirt.

The recycling bin fills up at least twice as fast as the trash can. This is due in part to the fact that the Cope Center recycles with Best Way which takes plastics 1-5 as well as cardboard. City of Richmond only does plastics 1 &2 and newspaper. We are also washing many of our ziploc bags (and ocasionally plastic silverware, Chuck!) and reusing many of the plastic food containers purchased at the grocery. Oh yeah we also bring the groceries home in reusable fabric grocery bags. By changing these simple and relatively easy parts of our routine we have reduced our garbage output to around one 18 gallon (recycled) bag per week.

If you have other thoughts about reducing waste around the house I would love to hear about them. If I get back around to it I’ll try to post more about our own efforts including (mostly my wife’s) laundry efforts as well as transportation issues, eating locally and my efforts to reduce my meat intake and live closer to the bottom of the food chain.

Hope you enjoyed this beautiful weekend!
-Keith

Bob said,

August 6, 2008 @ 1:31 pm · Edit

Hello – I am involved in sustainable development and want to pose a question that has been posed to me. Some people over 50 who experienced Earth Day I and have seen other surges and resurgences of attention to sustainability wonder whether the current spate of attention is merely a fad or whether it is here to stay. I am curious what evidence others can point to that would show this round is more than a passing fad.

Thank you Chuck!  That is a great challenge.  i am working to introduce more people to the blog and this is great way to help with those efforts.

I am posting a website that I read today about plastics in toys.  Yet another challenge to become more environmentally responsible!  This is a hard one – everything is made of plastic.  A big thing is for people to challenge themselves to use less – something easily accomplished by buying goods in bulk or larger size packages and avoiding single use throw away products.  We are fortunate to have Clear Creek Coop in town that allows members to purchase a VERY LARGE variety of goods in bulk.  A few folks are also working to start a buying club to make purchasing large quantities of items such as flour and grains more managable.  Check you local cooperative food stores or natural food stores for opportunities to purchse in bulk!

Here is the article regarding plastic in toys etc.  http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/Mag2/summertoys

And one on bpa in our plastic food and beverage containers.  http://www.thegreenguide.com/doc/114/bpa

Looking forward to learning more ways that others are working to be environmentally responsible!

In the near future I will blog about diapers!