Monthly Archives: March 2012

sustainablerenton_logo

Sustainable Renton

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When I started this blog in the late fall of 2010, I lamented that the Renton, WA area seemed uninterested in sustainability. At the time I couldn’t find resources or businesses that supported my environmental values. All of those businesses were in Bellevue or in the quirky neighborhoods of Seattle.

Maybe I wasn’t looking hard enough (I had only been in Washington 4 months), or maybe the fall of 2010 was a turning point for many people in the Renton community. I should have remembered that we live in the Pacific Northwest; every community has SOMEONE who cares about the environment and has the drive to start something cool.

Image Credit: Sustainable Renton

In 2010, Sustainable Renton was founded by a group of committed Renton citizens who wanted to promote a healthy and sustainable community.  The events put together by these volunteers focus mainly on sustainable food, but they also provide a list of businesses with green-friendly practices and the speaker series has touched on recycling issues as well.

I missed their March board meeting (second thursday of each month) but hope to join the effort in April.

More information on Sustainable Renton can be found on their website (www.sustainablerenton.org) and on Facebook (
http://www.facebook.com/SustainableRenton
).

garbagecans

Con-Crud: non sustainable practices at professional conferences

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When I travel, I bring my coffee mug and a water bottle because I feel guilty about contributing to another town’s landfills. And after my fork hunt in Arizona, I brought my bamboo utensil set to the conference. One person opting not to use disposable utensils is often just a drop in the bucket, I accept that. But I was not prepared for the degree of wastefulness surrounding me at this casino.

There is styrofoam EVERYWHERE.

Pizza, chowder, and a heaping side of styrofoam

The casino offers free non-alcoholic beverages for its guests on the casino floor, served in large styrofoam cups.  My lunch today (admittedly at the cheap, fast food stand) was: pizza on a styrofoam plate and soup in a styrofoam cup on top of a styrofoam “saucer” that served no other purpose. I kept thinking about the dead albatross babies with stomachs full of garbage as I ate my meal.  And when I was done, into the trash it went.

The only “eco” food containers I have seen are the compostable paper coffee cups from the gourmet coffee stand. But let’s be honest, most of my archaeology colleagues are taking advantage of the FREE coffee in the conference area, which is served in styrofoam cups.

It hurts my head to calculate the amount of eating-related garbage this conference is producing. Last night at the conference welcome reception we all filled up our plastic plates with food, and then threw away the plates, the plastic drink cups, and glass beer bottles into the same garbage cans. There were no recycling options that I could see. The only recycling bin that I have seen this week was located in the Tribal Headquarters office building.

Full garbage cans at the welcome reception

I would like to see figures for the energy and money costs of having to wash durable reusable ceramic dishes for a group of 300, because I am sure this is a money decision. The sit-down restaurants all use real utensils and plates, and I am fairly certain that the banquet dinner tonight will also. The casino has the infrastructure to wash dishes. 

I am just frustrated.

Many of us work for environmental resource consulting firms, state parks, and federal agencies (BLM, Forest Service, NPS, and Fish and Wildlife). I have seen most of these people recycle before. We are willing to preserve natural resources, if only the venue would provide us the opportunity.

Next year this conference will be in Portland, Oregon—a city with a well established reputation and infrastructure of sustinability. I will be curious to see how the garbage situation compares.

paperkarma

Update on the Battle Against Junk Mail

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Over the last two weeks I have noticed a marked decline in junk mail addressed to me. I was told it would take up to 90 days to process the opt-out request, but it looks like most of my junk mail is gone just one month after opting-out.

Sure I still get occasional mailings from my alma mater, health insurance provider and Planned Parenthood, but these are organizations that I continue to have regular dealings with. I do wish they had electronic only marketing options, especially the organizations I donate to. I’d rather they spent their money on the services they provide and save some trees in the process.

Anyway, at the same time I was opting out of junk mail, a new smart phone app was hitting the iPhone and Android markets to help users with their junk mail problems. Apparently you take a photo of your junk mail, submit the photo, and follow a few steps to unsubscribe from the mailing list. Paperkarma was released in early February and according to Geek Wire, it was such a success that the developers are overwhelmed by the response and can’t keep up with the demands. What originally was intended to be a 24-hr response time now takes a few days.

I look forward to trying out the app, if junk mail sneaks through my opt-out filter, but right now I feel kinda bad about adding to the developer’s burden.

Featured image credit: PaperKarma.com

Home Gardening Infographic

INFOGRAPHIC: Home Gardening in the US

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Spring is around the corner. Last Friday I could smell fresh cut grass everywhere and this weekend we all traded an hour of sleep for extra daylight.

I am starting to plan out my vegetable garden. I would like to improve my veggie-haul over last year. Improvement shouldn’t be difficult; I didn’t get anything planted until June last year, so I aim to be more proactive in 2012. Also, my tomato plant withered and died too quickly. It was an heirloom from Oregon so I think it was ill-equipped for my Washington soils and bugs. My pepper plant blossomed late and never ripened. I was able to enjoy a few zucchinis and cucumbers, but then I went on a three-week vacation at the peak of harvest season. My neighbor kindly watered my potted garden, but she did not pick anything. A foot-long and 5-inch diameter cucumber greeted me upon my return. After that, my cucucmber plant didn’t really produce any more cucumbers.

Here’s an infographic I found about DIY home gardeners from Infographics Archive. It says the median garden size is 96 square feet…mine was 4 pots that added up to 5 square feet. I can’t wait until I get a bigger yard one day.

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Fashionable and Geeky: d20 shoe clips

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The Event: The [belated] Wizards of the Coast holiday party

The Shoes: A pair of heels bought during college that are on their last legs

The Dilemma: A personal stubborn unwillingness to spend money on mass-produced, disposable fashion shoes that would probably hurt my feet

The Solution: Handmade floral shoe clips! With d20′s! (inspired by Etsy vendors and multiple crafty tutorials on the interwebs)

Check out my post on Girlhack.com! It includes more photos of the creation process and links to the fabric flower and shoe clip tutorials that inspired me.