By Vanessa Farquharson, greenasathistle.com
I’m currently on Day 249 of living as green a lifestyle as it gets. No, I’m not your standard hemp-clad, dread-locked hippie; just an average cosmopolitan woman who lives with her cat and has a flat-screen TV and wanted to do something to help fight global warming but didn’t know where to start.
So, I started with baby steps, and was determined to take a year’s worth of them, changing my life in an eco-friendly way every 24 hours. Sometimes I do small stuff, like switch to recycled paper towels; other times I do big stuff, like sell my car. What’s surprised me the most is that it’s often the big stuff that’s the easiest to deal with.
Doing things like letting it mellow, signing various online petitions and air-drying my socks can be such a hassle, for various reasons I won’t get into now. But living without a car? I love it – who needs road rage, lousy talk radio and traffic jams when you can be coasting along on a bicycle or reading a book on the subway; and without the money being spent on gas, insurance, license plate renewals, maintenance, car washes, parking tickets, and so on, I have plenty of extra cash in my pocket at the end of each month.
A dishwasher? Well, I used to run it all the time, but have found that it doesn’t take any longer to do the dishes by hand, and is actually quite relaxing.
The other day, I was having a conversation with a friend about which green changes I think I’ll keep doing after this challenge is done and which ones I’ll scrap. It’s a question I often get asked and usually my response is that I’ll keep up at least half the changes and gradually let go of the others. Then, out of nowhere, I heard myself saying that I probably won’t plug my fridge back in (yes, I unplugged my fridge). I couldn’t believe my own ears – nor my mouth – but upon further reflection I realized that living without a fridge has become completely doable. I’ve learned how to keep my veggies from spoiling (put a bunch of spinach in a vase), I’ve learned that eggs and most condiments really don’t need to be kept cold, and I’ve learned that a lot of energy is saved without it running all the time. In fact, if I did switch it back on, I’m not even sure I’d know what to put in it besides champagne (and yes, I’m totally going back on the local-alcohol-only rule).
I can’t recommend this particular idea to everyone – especially not big families or people who need to keep lots of leftovers – but for all the other folks out there willing to take a chance, remember that there are lots of countries that don’t use fridges, and there are inventions like the butter bell and the cheesecloth for a reason!
Vanessa Farquharson
NBC11 is happy to report the station has made a major commitment to going green.
A group of juniors and sophomores have been hard at work, trying to find ways to reduce the nation’s need for oil. The real-life lesson is being taught by science and technology teacher, John Karanopoulos. Their goal is the production of biodiesel.
But it’s not a simple task, the students explained. First they begin by “filtering the used cooking oil, so we can get the impurities,” said Woody Elwell, a junior. Then, junior Joseph Humes said, “we turn on the reaction pump for at least an hour.”
TEL AVIV: Most of us think garbage is a stinky business, but for Doron Sapir it’s part of his life and work. Until 1999, Doron’s knowledge about recycling was limited to throwing his own garbage away, but then he was appointed to the unpleasant job of taking care of 2,700 tons of garbage produced by the city of Tel Aviv and its surrounding area every day.
