Baseline for 90% Reduction List
Jun. 6th, 2007 11:10 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
helwenBaseline for 90% Reduction Challenge. Begin date was June 1, 2007. End date will be May 31, 2008. We'll experiment, try some things new or old, see what we can do. Review at the end of the year what worked best, what didn't work, what's worth keeping, and what we want to try next.
Realistically, we won't attain 90% reduction across the board, at least not for a few years. I'm not about to take a bus to the Pennsic War, thanks (although we were joking about taking horses there. That would only take a few months to get there and back again, eh?). But we might have a more economical vehicle by next year...
Figures are behind the cut, so anyone not interested in this stuff can ignore it.
1. Gasoline. Average American usage is 500 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR. A 90 percent reduction would be 50 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR.
So, that's 100 gallons/year, for two people. Too bad I can't count the cats.... Last year we drove 14,950 miles. At ~21 mpg, that's ~711 gallons, which is over the American average.
Of that, we used the minivan as a bus to carpool for several trips.
EDIT: the 90%Reduction list seems to have come up with something that's acceptable for carpooling. So I get to take off 41 gallons.... Down to 670, which is still over the average.
We've switched to walking/biking for things close to home, but I don't know how far we'll take that -- depends on if I'm physically able to go further, doesn't it :P Still, that may make enough of a difference to get us closer to the average... we unfortunately still need a larger vehicle because of bringing stuff to/from the farm and to/from SCA events. And of course, there's Pennsic. That's 47-48 gallons by itself. *sigh*
Well, we'll just keep chipping away at the local trips...
2. Electricity. Average US usage is 11,000 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR, or about 900 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH. A 90% reduction would mean using 1,100 PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR or 90 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH
Most recent electric bill is in - 260 KWH. Up 15 from last month, probably because we had to start using the dehumidifier in the basement. Hoping using the water from that in the washing machine will help to offset it -- didn't think of doing that the first few times I dumped the water. Was thinking of using the water for plants, then![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
alphasarah mentioned using it in her washing machine, which is quite a bit closer than the plants!
Can't afford any of the alternative energy sources, so no savings there this year. If we're careful and we can get the dining/living room done so I can hang insulating fabric on the walls, we might be able to keep electric at about where it is now. Depends on my asthma too, of course. So, currently we're at 28% of average household use, which is pretty good in my book. I'm still planning on playing with a solar cooker, and maybe we'll do more with the grill this summer... which also release some CO2 into the air, but maybe less? It's a tiny hibachi, not one of the giant grills.
3. Heating and Cooking Energy - this is divided into 3 categories, gas, wood and oil. Your household probably uses one of these, and they are not interchangeable. If you use an electric stove or electric heat, this goes under electric usage.
* Wood or Natural Gas: 0
* Charcoal (I added this in): Unknown at this point. We'll find out.
* Cooking is all electric at this point (see above for elec. usage).
* Heating Oil: 659.8 (~660)
* Average US usage is 750 Gallons PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR. A 90% cut would mean using 75 gallons PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR.
Hey, we're under the average, whoot! Not by much (88% of avg.), but I'll take what I can get.
Hm. This should be interesting. We have a plan for the winter -- move most everything down to the first floor and shut off the second floor, except for the bathroom. Since we won't be able to add alternative energy sources to the house, conserving space & energy and adding more insulation are our only options.
Singing practices might end up at someone else's house (we have a couple of choices), but then we have to drive more, instead of less. I'm not much for biking in heavy snow, thanks... so, we'll do what we can, and read up on stuff we can do in the next place.
4. Garbage - the average American generates about 4.5 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean .45 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY.
fitzw weighed the trash today. 1.8 pounds for the two of us, for the _week_! I knew it wasn't much, but wondered... so, we're at .028% of average consumption. No worries there, although we'll continue to work on getting things with less packaging anyway.
5. Water. The Average American uses 100 Gallons of water PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean 10 gallons PER PERSON, PER DAY.
We've been doing a few water conservation things this spring, and have just added a few other things. More research needed on the rain barrel water. Some roofing has zinc in it and other stuff that aren't good for people. We're thinking the roofing for Seattle isn't the same as the roofing for New England (very wet over there), so trying to find useful info on whether or not our roof water is safe to use in the vegetable garden has been difficult so far. We can still use it for flushing the toilets and for non-edibles, but I was really keen on being able to use it for the edibles... Okay, baseline for this past year: 51 gal/person/day. So we're starting at about 50% of Am. avg. -- not too bad. I'm sure we can improve on that.
6. Consumer Goods. The best metric I could find for this is using money. A Professor at Syracuse University calculates that as an average, every consumer dollar we spend puts .5 lbs of carbon into the atmosphere. This isn’t perfect, of course, but it averages out pretty well.
The average American spends 10K PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR on consumer goods, not including things like mortgage, health care, debt service, car payments, etc… Obviously, we recommend you minimize those things to the extent you can, but what we’re mostly talking about is things like gifts, toys, music, books, tools, household goods, cosmetics, toiletries, paper goods, etc… A 90% cut would be 1,000 dollars PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR
* Used goods are deemed to have an energy cost of 10% of their actual purchase price. Rule does not apply if item would otherwise be thrown out - e.g., someone says, “If you don’t buy it, I’m going to toss it.” Those items are unlimited as well, because they keep stuff out of landfills.
* Goods that were donated are deemed to be unlimited, with no carbon cost. That is, you can spend all you want at Goodwill and the church rummage sale. Putting things back into use that would otherwise be tossed should be strongly encouraged.
Spent 65.09 on trash cans related to water-catching & cart to help with shopping. I'll be book-hunting soon, and while I'd prefer used, I may opt for some new ones if it means I can get them all from one place. The lower energy cost for used books goes down, at least as far as I'm concerned, if I have to get them shipped from ten different places. And unfortunately the books I'm interested in probably aren't available at the local used book stores. Still, might be worth the trip to Northampton to find out...
7. Food. This was by far the hardest thing to come up with a simple metric for. Using food miles, or price gives what I believe is a radically inaccurate way of thinking about this. So here’s the best I can do. Food is divided into 3 categories.
#1 is food you grow, or which is produced *LOCALLY AND ORGANICALLY* (or mostly....Local means within 100 miles...includes all produce, grains, beans, and meats and dairy products that are mostly either *GRASSFED* or produced with *HOME GROWN OR LOCALLY GROWN, ORGANIC FEED.... 90% reduction ...being AT LEAST 70% of your diet, year round. Ideally, it would be even more. I also include locally produced things like soap in this category, if most of the ingredients are local.
#2 is is *DRY, BULK* goods, transported from longer distances. That is, *whole, unprocessed* beans, grains, and small light things like tea, coffee, spices (fair trade and sustainably grown *ONLY*), or locally produced animal products partly raised on unprocessed but non-local grains, and locally produced wet products like oils. This is hard to calculate, because Americans spend very little on these things (except coffee) and whole grains don’t constitute a large portion of the diet. These are comparatively low carbon to transport and produce. Purchased in bulk, with minimal packaging (beans in 50lb paper sacks, pasta in bulk, tea loose, by the pound, rather than in little bags), this would also include things like recycled toilet paper, purchased garden seeds and other light, dry items. This should be no more than 25% of your total purchases.
# 3 is Wet goods - conventionally grown meat, fruits, vegetables, juices, oils, milk etc… transported long distances, and processed foods like chips, soda, potatoes. Also regular shampoo, dish soap, etc… And that no more than 5% of their food in this form. Right now, the above makes up more than 50% of everyone’s diet.
Thus, if you purchase 20 food items in a week, you’d use 14 home or locally produced items, 5 bulk dry items, and only 1 processed or out of season thing.
Again, we won't make the 90% on this one, because of course we'll eat at SCA events and that will be whatever it is. I expect for baseline we're at whatever the average is, aside from the salad stuff we've been growing, and the veggies we get from the farm every year. Mostly we've just been trying to have a healthier diet (one thing at a time, eh?). So, now we have the really big garden, farmer's market, CSAs, the folk's farm, local poultry farms, and lots of canning and drying to do. This will probably be the biggest change for us.
Realistically, we won't attain 90% reduction across the board, at least not for a few years. I'm not about to take a bus to the Pennsic War, thanks (although we were joking about taking horses there. That would only take a few months to get there and back again, eh?). But we might have a more economical vehicle by next year...
Figures are behind the cut, so anyone not interested in this stuff can ignore it.
1. Gasoline. Average American usage is 500 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR. A 90 percent reduction would be 50 gallons PER PERSON, PER YEAR.
So, that's 100 gallons/year, for two people. Too bad I can't count the cats.... Last year we drove 14,950 miles. At ~21 mpg, that's ~711 gallons, which is over the American average.
Of that, we used the minivan as a bus to carpool for several trips.
EDIT: the 90%Reduction list seems to have come up with something that's acceptable for carpooling. So I get to take off 41 gallons.... Down to 670, which is still over the average.
We've switched to walking/biking for things close to home, but I don't know how far we'll take that -- depends on if I'm physically able to go further, doesn't it :P Still, that may make enough of a difference to get us closer to the average... we unfortunately still need a larger vehicle because of bringing stuff to/from the farm and to/from SCA events. And of course, there's Pennsic. That's 47-48 gallons by itself. *sigh*
Well, we'll just keep chipping away at the local trips...
2. Electricity. Average US usage is 11,000 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR, or about 900 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH. A 90% reduction would mean using 1,100 PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR or 90 kwh PER HOUSEHOLD PER MONTH
Most recent electric bill is in - 260 KWH. Up 15 from last month, probably because we had to start using the dehumidifier in the basement. Hoping using the water from that in the washing machine will help to offset it -- didn't think of doing that the first few times I dumped the water. Was thinking of using the water for plants, then
alphasarah mentioned using it in her washing machine, which is quite a bit closer than the plants! Can't afford any of the alternative energy sources, so no savings there this year. If we're careful and we can get the dining/living room done so I can hang insulating fabric on the walls, we might be able to keep electric at about where it is now. Depends on my asthma too, of course. So, currently we're at 28% of average household use, which is pretty good in my book. I'm still planning on playing with a solar cooker, and maybe we'll do more with the grill this summer... which also release some CO2 into the air, but maybe less? It's a tiny hibachi, not one of the giant grills.
3. Heating and Cooking Energy - this is divided into 3 categories, gas, wood and oil. Your household probably uses one of these, and they are not interchangeable. If you use an electric stove or electric heat, this goes under electric usage.
* Wood or Natural Gas: 0
* Charcoal (I added this in): Unknown at this point. We'll find out.
* Cooking is all electric at this point (see above for elec. usage).
* Heating Oil: 659.8 (~660)
* Average US usage is 750 Gallons PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR. A 90% cut would mean using 75 gallons PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR.
Hey, we're under the average, whoot! Not by much (88% of avg.), but I'll take what I can get.
Hm. This should be interesting. We have a plan for the winter -- move most everything down to the first floor and shut off the second floor, except for the bathroom. Since we won't be able to add alternative energy sources to the house, conserving space & energy and adding more insulation are our only options.
Singing practices might end up at someone else's house (we have a couple of choices), but then we have to drive more, instead of less. I'm not much for biking in heavy snow, thanks... so, we'll do what we can, and read up on stuff we can do in the next place.
4. Garbage - the average American generates about 4.5 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean .45 lbs of garbage PER PERSON, PER DAY.
fitzw weighed the trash today. 1.8 pounds for the two of us, for the _week_! I knew it wasn't much, but wondered... so, we're at .028% of average consumption. No worries there, although we'll continue to work on getting things with less packaging anyway.5. Water. The Average American uses 100 Gallons of water PER PERSON, PER DAY. A 90% reduction would mean 10 gallons PER PERSON, PER DAY.
We've been doing a few water conservation things this spring, and have just added a few other things. More research needed on the rain barrel water. Some roofing has zinc in it and other stuff that aren't good for people. We're thinking the roofing for Seattle isn't the same as the roofing for New England (very wet over there), so trying to find useful info on whether or not our roof water is safe to use in the vegetable garden has been difficult so far. We can still use it for flushing the toilets and for non-edibles, but I was really keen on being able to use it for the edibles... Okay, baseline for this past year: 51 gal/person/day. So we're starting at about 50% of Am. avg. -- not too bad. I'm sure we can improve on that.
6. Consumer Goods. The best metric I could find for this is using money. A Professor at Syracuse University calculates that as an average, every consumer dollar we spend puts .5 lbs of carbon into the atmosphere. This isn’t perfect, of course, but it averages out pretty well.
The average American spends 10K PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR on consumer goods, not including things like mortgage, health care, debt service, car payments, etc… Obviously, we recommend you minimize those things to the extent you can, but what we’re mostly talking about is things like gifts, toys, music, books, tools, household goods, cosmetics, toiletries, paper goods, etc… A 90% cut would be 1,000 dollars PER HOUSEHOLD, PER YEAR
* Used goods are deemed to have an energy cost of 10% of their actual purchase price. Rule does not apply if item would otherwise be thrown out - e.g., someone says, “If you don’t buy it, I’m going to toss it.” Those items are unlimited as well, because they keep stuff out of landfills.
* Goods that were donated are deemed to be unlimited, with no carbon cost. That is, you can spend all you want at Goodwill and the church rummage sale. Putting things back into use that would otherwise be tossed should be strongly encouraged.
Spent 65.09 on trash cans related to water-catching & cart to help with shopping. I'll be book-hunting soon, and while I'd prefer used, I may opt for some new ones if it means I can get them all from one place. The lower energy cost for used books goes down, at least as far as I'm concerned, if I have to get them shipped from ten different places. And unfortunately the books I'm interested in probably aren't available at the local used book stores. Still, might be worth the trip to Northampton to find out...
7. Food. This was by far the hardest thing to come up with a simple metric for. Using food miles, or price gives what I believe is a radically inaccurate way of thinking about this. So here’s the best I can do. Food is divided into 3 categories.
#1 is food you grow, or which is produced *LOCALLY AND ORGANICALLY* (or mostly....Local means within 100 miles...includes all produce, grains, beans, and meats and dairy products that are mostly either *GRASSFED* or produced with *HOME GROWN OR LOCALLY GROWN, ORGANIC FEED.... 90% reduction ...being AT LEAST 70% of your diet, year round. Ideally, it would be even more. I also include locally produced things like soap in this category, if most of the ingredients are local.
#2 is is *DRY, BULK* goods, transported from longer distances. That is, *whole, unprocessed* beans, grains, and small light things like tea, coffee, spices (fair trade and sustainably grown *ONLY*), or locally produced animal products partly raised on unprocessed but non-local grains, and locally produced wet products like oils. This is hard to calculate, because Americans spend very little on these things (except coffee) and whole grains don’t constitute a large portion of the diet. These are comparatively low carbon to transport and produce. Purchased in bulk, with minimal packaging (beans in 50lb paper sacks, pasta in bulk, tea loose, by the pound, rather than in little bags), this would also include things like recycled toilet paper, purchased garden seeds and other light, dry items. This should be no more than 25% of your total purchases.
# 3 is Wet goods - conventionally grown meat, fruits, vegetables, juices, oils, milk etc… transported long distances, and processed foods like chips, soda, potatoes. Also regular shampoo, dish soap, etc… And that no more than 5% of their food in this form. Right now, the above makes up more than 50% of everyone’s diet.
Thus, if you purchase 20 food items in a week, you’d use 14 home or locally produced items, 5 bulk dry items, and only 1 processed or out of season thing.
Again, we won't make the 90% on this one, because of course we'll eat at SCA events and that will be whatever it is. I expect for baseline we're at whatever the average is, aside from the salad stuff we've been growing, and the veggies we get from the farm every year. Mostly we've just been trying to have a healthier diet (one thing at a time, eh?). So, now we have the really big garden, farmer's market, CSAs, the folk's farm, local poultry farms, and lots of canning and drying to do. This will probably be the biggest change for us.
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no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 12:22 am (UTC)(I really enjoy your ecological entries, BTW. Don't often comment, but I do always read and ponder them.)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 03:23 am (UTC)Glad you enjoy the entries - I worry sometimes about boring folks -- they're my friends, after all! But it's definitely something I enjoy doing. My mom has decided to call me an 'activist'... I guess that makes it sensible to her that I don't have a 'real job' LOL.
btw, I'm glad you post on the AODA list. The recent discussion has been interesting to read, but in that and many others, I look to your and JMG's posts to help me make sense sometimes of what people are talking about.
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 06:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 02:26 am (UTC)The only thing I ask is that someone with a heavy duty vacuum cleaner come and help me do the initial work on the floor; after that I should be able to do it myself. There's a great little pizza place on the way south if people want to continue having dinner after practice, too.
Let me know what you think. I'm more than happy to host for a while and take the burden off you. Besides, wouldn't it be a hoot if Malfoy turned out to like music?
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 08:31 pm (UTC)I'd be willing to help with cleaning, but our vacuum cleaners aren't heavy duty. Rental maybe?
That would indeed be fun if Malfoy liked our music :)
Thanks for the official offer :)
no subject
Date: 2007-06-07 10:52 pm (UTC)