A salute to the public library

When you think of a sustainable lifestyle, many people don't fully recognize the contribution of the public library. I use mine all the time as a substitute for buying books and magazines. Most libraries now have a system where you can search for a book and put it on hold if it is unavailable. Once the book comes in, they will put it aside for you, send you an e-mail that it has arrived, and you just have to pick it up. I have a list of about 7 books that I am waiting for right now, and just picked up one a few days ago. The same applies to CDs and DVDs. So instead of spending hard earned money on a book or DVD that you will read/view once, you can borrow it and return it for someone else to use. I can't think of a more sustainable way to use all forms of media.

Libraries are also becoming in-demand computer centers. Our library, Troy Public Library, has devoted quite a bit of space to their computer center, and from my unscientific observations, it appears to be consistently full. I sometimes wonder why, until I think about the monthly expense of running high-speed internet in our home and realize that not everyone can afford this luxury. There is a economic justice component to sustainability, and the public library levels the playing field for us. No matter what type of income you have, if you live in a community you have equal rights and access to information, in the form of books, periodicals, electronic media and computer access.

I remember reading a biography of Benjamin Franklin by H.W. Brands quite a while ago. I recall that although his personal life was sometimes less than perfect, he was responsible for developing a public library system in the U.S. in 1731, along with his other achievements. At a time when books were scarce and expensive, he recognized the fact that if people pooled resources, they could afford to purchase books from England. Since then the public library system has been an integral part of all of our lives.

Libraries couldn't be more important than in times of scarcity, like now. Many people stop buying books, end magazine subscriptions and stop internet in their homes in an economic downturn, so the need for a good community library system becomes more important than ever. Unfortunately, when people stop working and businesses pull out of communities, tax revenues go down and libraries feel the effects. Right now my community, Troy, is threatening to shut down the library if a millage is not passed on Tuesday. People understandably don't want to pay more money when they don't have it themselves. But I do think back to Benjamin Franklin's time, when most people in the colonies were without many of life's necessities, and admire their desire to pull together resources for the common good. I hope our ancestors' example helps us understand our own priorities now.

Bike Bags

Since I live only about a mile from my local grocery store, I was looking for some easy-to-use, practical bags for my bike that would fit the standard grocery shopping bag. I found these Biria USA bags on Bikemania.biz. I like them because they were very easy to attach to the rear bike rack, they are waterproof and close at the top to keep out rain or splashing water. Looks like I'll be using my bike even more this year! -- Martha

A Little Greenhouse

Erica brought this little contraption to our last Tuesday meeting. It's a greenhouse made from a spinach container and an egg carton, and can be used for starting seedlings. What's nice about this device is that you need to water the seeds only once, when you first plant them. The lid will produce a greenhouse effect - sending the moisture back down into the fledgling plants. Good job Erica!

Eco-cook

Here's a clever idea coming from Treehugger.com. In their Design and Architecture section, they display this idea from Kechenyi Camille from France. It's called Eco-cook and multi-tasks your cooking, boiling food at the same time. Mitzi Carter found that her multi-pot from Williams-Sonoma works just as well.

Cork Flooring

At last week's Tuesday meeting, we heard Denny's somewhat depressing report about his search to find a place to recycle old carpeting. First, he could not find anyone who was willing to recycle his carpeting, and then, after doing a bit of research, he found out that carpeting that goes to landfills takes approximately 20,000 years to decompose! I would say that poses a problem - most of us will replace carpeting at least a couple of times in our lifetimes.

Tom and I were at that point this fall. We own a group of 6 condominiums in Longboat Key, Florida, and the carpets in the bedrooms were stained beyond repair and needed to be replaced. The problem for us was the fact that we have never had luck with carpets in rental units - they are stained within months of installation, and within 5 years or so they need to be replaced. We really didn't want to put more carpeting in, knowing that it would have to be replaced within a short period of time. So what to do? Most people like carpeting in their bedrooms.

We decided to follow the example of the IHM Motherhouse in Monroe and go with cork flooring. We knew, after walking on the floors at the Motherhouse, that cork was soft on the feet and quite beautiful, in addition to coming from a sustainable source [cork is considered a rapidly renewable product]. So the flooring was recently installed and the results are beyond our expectations! We love the look, the feel is soft on the feet, there is no echo-factor in the room. We didn't even feel the need to add scatter rugs. We have to see how they will wear, but for now we are quite pleased. By the way, we bought our flooring online at floormall.com, and the type we purchased was Valencia.

The Devil in the Details

I think the story of my coffee mug is a great example of the process we are all going through trying to live a more green lifestyle. A little background: Over the past couple of years, I have read 2 books about garbage (please hear me out...I know I have already lost credibility with any sane person reading this!). First I read Gone Tomorrow: The Hidden Life of Garbage by Heather Rogers, and then, apparently compelled to read more on the subject, I read Garbage Land: On the Secret Trail of Trash by Elizabeth Royte. The one important message I derived from both books was: Recycling is OK, but the real deal, the thing you absolutely have to start doing, is REDUCE the amount of stuff you consume. One small way I decided to do this was to use a reuseable mug when buying a drink outside of my home. This should be simple, right?

Wrong! First, I actually had to remember to bring my mug with me (helps to carry a bigger purse), and then, a while back when I had my mug with me, I went to a Starbucks and asked them to put my coffee into my mug. I got rewarded with a 10-cent discount, and then watched as the barrista made my coffee in a disposable cup, poured it into my mug, and threw out the cup. Great.

So the next time I went to a Starbucks, I handed my mug to the clerk and said: 'Can you make me a coffee in this mug without using another cup?' 'Sure,' was the reply I received, and when I explained the situation from last time, they told me that the person was not trained correctly, and that their policy is not to use cups just to throw away.

I know this seems microscopic in the grand scheme of things, but it represents decisions and conversations I have every day in so many areas. A big part of the work is just KEEPING AT IT.

Bioneers 2007

We had a great time at the Bioneers Conference this weekend at Marygrove College. Our rain barrel presentation was well attended with 35 participants! At the end of the day, all the barrels were gone. Most important, we found so many others to connect with. We found over 25 people interested in hearing more about our group...maybe it was the cookies!

Another lasagna garden

Another lasagna garden in Troy... I'm preparing it now to let it cook during the winter.
You can see the whole sequence on the lasagna gardening page.

Lasagna Gardening, Part III

We thought it might be interesting for you all to see the end result of our lasagna gardening work this year. I'm calling this Part III because we have talked previously about building lasagna gardens, then the planting and growing process, but we have not as yet arrived at the best part -- making delicious food from the harvest. The picture above shows Maureen, Tom and Molly cutting up butternut squash to make soup. We had so much this year we had to make a double recipe. We now have soup for both their household and ours, and it should last until NEXT summer's harvest, looking at the huge amounts we have frozen. If you'd like the recipe, you'll find it on the recipes page.

Techno Trash

We have been working at cleaning stuff out of our house, a little bit at a time. I have taken used books and video tapes to the library, but ended up with some homemade tapes, or tapes missing the boxes, and didn't know what to do with them. In the past I have just thrown them in with the regular trash, but a few years with this group have made me think twice about that option. I googled 'videotapes recycling' and came up with a site called GreenDisk. This company wants all of your techno-trash (see list of acceptable trash), and they promise to "...safely and securely destroy your old data, recover reusable components, and recycle..." it. So I gathered together some old video tapes and threw in a couple of outdated portable disc players, weighed it, boxed it, and went to their site to order a mailing slip for $6.95 (their processing cost). Then I took the box to the post office this morning and paid another $15.46 to send it (note: The post office employees told me that it could have been much cheaper if I had not included the CD players - live and learn). So I'm out about 20 bucks but my conscience is a lot clearer.

Dual Flush Toilets

When we studied water last year, one of the things we discovered was that toilets consumed more water, on average, than anything else in the typical home. This fall we remodeled a bathroom in our home, and decided to take the opportunity to add 2 dual-flush toilets and see how they work. I'm happy to report they are great! In case you are not familiar with these toilets, the picture above shows how they work. You push the smaller button (.9 gallons per flush) if you are flushing down liquid waste, and the larger button (1.6 gallons per flush) for solid waste. This model is a Toto Aquia Dual Flush Toilet.

Michigan State Recognition for Green Leadership

Four colleges and universities have received the 2007 Campus Sustainability Leadership Award from the Association for the Advancement of Sustainability in Higher Education.

The winners, who were honored at the Greening of the Campus conference at Ball State University in Muncie, Ind., were Michigan State University, East Lansing; Middlebury College, Middlebury, Vt.; Green Mountain College, Poultney, Vt.; and Chandler-Gilbert Community College, Chandler, Ariz.

The awards recognize schools that have made substantial commitments to sustainability in governance and administration, operations, curriculum and research, campus culture and community outreach.

Michigan State received the award for four-year schools with more than 7,500 students. Among the university's efforts: Developing an expanded recycling center; incorporation of LEED design practices into campus construction standards; using design strategies for parking lots to reduce storm water run off and frequency of mowing; switching all farm equipment and university-owned diesel trucks on campus to bio-diesel fuel; adding 15 hybrid vehicles to the campus fleet; opening a full-time bike center; updating its campus plan to call for a coordinated bicycle system that includes convenient and appropriately sized storage facilities, bike lanes within roadways, and pathways where appropriate.

For the full story:

Green School and University

Eating locally

Our lasagna gardening project is producing food in abundance! This past Sunday, Tom and Peggy trooped out to the garden to harvest tomatoes. We had to whack our way in, mainly because the 2 squash plants have decided to take over. You can see from the picture that some of the broccoli has gone to flower, but we have been able to harvest quite a bit of it first. The broccoli made a delicious cream of broccoli soup, and with the tomatoes we were able to make a fantastic spaghetti sauce. Yum.

Summer Reading

This summer I read'' Animal, Vegetable, Miracle'' by Barbara Kingsolver and I was quite impressed with the book. The author and her family moved from Arizona to an inherited farm in western Virginia and decided to 'live off the land' for a year. This means that they grew their own fruits and vegetables, and even raised their own chickens and turkeys for consumption. They also agreed that to supplement their diet, they could buy organic foods grown within a 100-mile radius of their home. The book is arranged sequentially, from April to the following March, and tells about the process of growing, raising and finally eating foods seasonally. Many of us have joined CSA's (Community Supported Agriculture groups), and reading this book has been a great affirmation of that decision. I have the book to loan out if anyone would like to read it.

Wales

Tom and Peggy took a trip to London and Wales to visit a number of centers/organizations for sustainability: Bioregional in London, Centre for Alternative Technology in in Machynlleth, Wales, and Sustainable Wales in Porthcawl, Wales. Here are our notes: Wales Trip. Take a photo tour on our Great Lakes Green Initiative Flickr page.

The Rain Garden

I wanted to take this picture to show how big our rain garden plants are. We planted them last year as tiny plugs, and this year they are....well, you can see these milkweed plants are just about the same size as Tom. The monarch butterflies are loving it. We got our plants from the Native Plant Nursery in Ann Arbor.

Watering Can

I received a new watering can for Mother's Day, and it's great for the rain barrel. It's hard to see in this picture, but it has a nice wide opening at the top for the water to pour into, and a great spout for sprinkling flowers. It came from Bordines.

Rain Barrel BBQ

On Saturday, June 16th, we gathered in the Bradleys' garage for the 2nd annual rain barrel bbq. We made 14 barrels, and have orders for 4 more. Take a look at the Rain Barrel Barbecue - June 16th page for more pictures from the day.

Stenciled rain barrel

Our first experiment with stencil... please look at it and give me some feedback. (Thanks to Toni for let me use her rainbarrel)-- Erica
- Very artistic! tom.

Bulbs

Recently it came to our attention that the newer compact fluorescent bulbs were perhaps more trouble than they were worth, given the fact that they contain mercury and could pose a hazard if they broke in your home (mercury is a toxic substance). Helen did a little research on this, and found that they contain only a tiny fraction of the amount of mercury found in an old-fashioned thermometer. That was good news. In a bit of serendipity, Tom received an e-mail from his favorite bulb supplier, 1000 Bulbs, and they were promoting a new Neolite Compact Fluorescent that has the smallest amounts of mercury available (1 mil. vs. 5 mls.). This is very encouraging. These bulbs still have to be recycled, not in your recycling bin, but they need to be taken to SOCCRA and disposed of as hazardous waste.