Energy Tips & Tricks: Laundry

We all have to clean our clothes eventually. If you do not agree, stop reading now.

I was on an island for two months last summer, in Alaska, collecting data on seabird reproduction for the Fish & Wildlife Service. And of course, there was no washing machine, dishwasher, tap water, jogging path, etc. And we STILL washed our clothes. Though I don't think I'll be hearing much agreement from my mom after I showed up at the Philadelphia airport, direct from Alaska, without a shower. (Which was not my fault. But I digress.)


(Look -- you can see the laundry hanging in our camp)


My views on low-energy laundry do not include getting rid of the washing machine. Having had the experience of washing my clothes in a bucket with stream water, I will say that a washing machine probably does a better job than you can do -- and it can do it using less water than you. But there is something sort of neat about doing laundry by hand. In fact, I think everyone should put themselves in a non-machine situation at some point in their lives, for at least a month. Otherwise, you may never understand how many luxuries you currently, unknowingly, enjoy.

So, the washing machine saves you energy, but you need to supply the rest.

First of all, be a little dirty. I subscribe to the belief that clothing is not dirty until it has either a stain or a scent. I obviously don't advocate re-wearing your underwear, and probably not too often with the socks, but other than that: it's not dirty just because you wore it once.

Another no-brainer is cold-water wash. It takes energy to heat anything. Your cup of tea, the shower water, the seat warmers in your car. So if you use cold water, you save that energy, plus the color in your clothes will probably last longer.

A word on laundry detergent. There are some detergents that are specially formulated to work with cold-water washes; on the island, we used Woolite. My boss was quite explicit on this point, and when a man who regularly spends 1/6 of his year in the wilderness tells you how to do laundry (or how to do anything for that matter), you listen to him, unless you're touched in the head.

However, I'd advise seeking out environmentally friendly soaps. Your local co-op should have a selection to choose from; your local mega store probably doesn't give a crap. Biodegradable soaps are better for all your friendly woodland creatures, and what's good for them is good for you. Or you can make your own, like they did on Going Nuts. Obviously this will take some time and some initial investment in ingredients, but it ends up cheaper in the long run. I personally am going to invest the extra dollar or two in the convenience of having someone else make it for me.

If you're worried about which detergent will best lift those stains or oust that BO, I'd advise you to do a little bit of research -- there are a good number of reviews on the 'net. If it's just the smell thing, though, throw some baking soda in the wash. Baking soda is a great deodorizer. I sprinkled some on my bath towel when it started smelling grody, and now it smells like angels.

Well, no, I haven't ever smelled an angel, but... it smells better than before, okay??

To top it all off, hang dry. Everything. I understand if you're in a rush, or if you're doing your laundry at the laundromat, but lacking a clothesline and pins is no excuse. So far in life, I have had exactly one room at my disposal, and I have always found space to hang things or lay things out to dry overnight. (Like... HANGERS!) If you need something dry for the next day, swipe it with an iron before bed. It's pretty easy.

Just to review... re-wear, cold water wash, eco-friendly soap, and hang dry. The modifications are so slight, but you'll save energy. Another baby step toward saving the world.

Johnny Appleseed I am not.

The good news is that the mint is kickin' butt and taking names.

The bad news is that I managed to obliterate my baby apple trees.

First of all, the mothership is doing great.

There's been a lot of little mint coming in down at the base, as you can see.

And here's two of the mint shoots I decided to try to "clone." You just cut off a sprig and stick it in some water for a few weeks. The first one is Joon and the other is Benny (just for the sake of differentiating between them...)

They're obviously in descending order by date. The amazing bit, to me, is that the first five photos of each set were taken daily, consecutively. The sets as a whole span from April 26-May 11. Just look at how fast those dang roots grew in! I think they were in the water for a week or two before the roots started.

These guys are actually gifts for my sister, Bets, and my beau, Matt. Now that they're established in some soil, I think they're ready to come up north with me on Memorial Day weekend. (The mint plants, that is.)

I also started a third shoot, which I've called Skippy, because he's a little bit behind.

It seems like the bigger the shoot is, the quicker the roots grow. And vice versa.

Ergo, Skippy. It's taken him about three or four weeks to get to this point.

I'm not really sure what's up with the brown roots. They grew in white, and then I changed the water and they turned brown. I don't think they've grown anymore, either. Anyway, more white roots started growing in, so it's all gravy.

So, my poor apples. I've got photos of them, too:

The first one is the very first shoot to come out of the ground. I think it took about a week, which is insane to me. That was April 29; the next one, going down, is from May 4. Four of them sprouted! The next one, May 8, you can see that the outer shell of the seeds fell off most of them, but by May 11, they were completely dead. Actually, I think one of them may live. I stuck 'em in some water; it worked for the mint, after all.

Anyway, apple shoots are evidently extremely susceptible to root rot, which comes of overwatering the poor dears. And I guarantee you I overwatered them. I was watering them every day. They don't need to be watered every day. In fact, when I get another chance, I'm only going to water them once a week. If that. The moisture really stays down in the soil, which I didn't realize; I thought the top of the soil had to be damp.

D'oh.

Anyway, so I was fairly depressed about that for a little while, but I'm going to keep trying. I'm trying different methods of sprouting them... here's the count:

• 21 in the fridge in a wet paper towel in a baggie, after drying a week
• ~15 in a yogurt container full of moist potting soil, after drying a week
• 6 in water, after drying a few days
• 16 currently drying
• ~20 in a wet paper towel in a baggie in my desk drawer at work, after no drying

Dang, that's actually a lot of seeds...

I guess I should mention that the seeds that sprouted came from the yogurt container. The ones in the fridge were started at the same time, from the same batch of dried seeds, but they haven't done very much yet. Everything else was started within the last week.

Anywho, I've learned a lot about growing things. Don't overwater, because the moisture's down in the soil. And patience is good to have, too... though that's not my strong suit when I get so excited about the things poppin' up out of the soil.

Energy Tips & Tricks: Alarm Clocks

Even with all this talk about "green energy," there's not much being said about conserved energy. Problem is, it's not fashionable. It's not fashionable to conserve energy. The buzz is all about being "green." This warm buzz (like the one in the background, emanating from the TV you're not watching) soothes the listener into thinking that homo sapiens can live at a massive population level and continue to consume the same amount of energy, because, hey, it's green.

But it's not the end of the world, okay? (Though, trust me, it's easy to start thinking that way, and I'm guilty of that.) There's definitely a speed bump coming up, and we just need to slow down a few hundred miles per hour. Change is coming. It would be most helpful to preempt it by starting the change on our own.

And it doesn't have to be huge. Start by thinking about how much energy you consume, and figure out where you can cut a corner or two.

Here's my example. I was thinking about how much energy cell phones use. Cell phones are handy little buggers. I can call folks, text short messages, keep to-do lists, write down things on a calendar, and it works as an alarm clock. Most of my dorm-mates in college used their cell phones as alarm clocks.

But it seemed... wrong. Cell phones aren't that energy-efficient. (More on that later.) And leaving the durn thing on all night just so I could get up at 8 AM felt like I was cheating Ma Nature. ("Yo, Ma, I'm just gonna stay up all night so I can't wake up on my own, and I'm gonna use up your energy to get my butt outta bed in the morning. We cool?")

Even an electric clock wouldn't solve the dilemma; in fact, it would be even worse. They might be more efficient than phones, but then you depend upon TWO electrical devices, and the whole consumption bit, etcetera. Surely, I thought, there must be a better way.

It's called a keywound alarm clock. You've probably seen them in the form of clip-art or caricatures of outdated things: that round face clock with the bells on top. Yeah, they still make those things. Mine was given to me as a gift from Matt, because I was complaining to him about it, and I guess he wanted me to shut my darn pie-hole, so there. So, yeah, it's from China. If I get lead poisoning, we all know where to point our fingers.

You just wind up the thing every night before you go to sleep, and it runs for however long it's designed to run fully-wound; mine runs 36 hours. So if I forget to wind it (and I do), it runs until I get back from work. I feel pretty smug, being able to flip off the surge protector at night. I even turn the phone off so no one can disturb my beauty rest.

If you decide to get a keywound, see if you can get one with a loud/soft option. Mine doesn't have one, so it's pretty loud, but I guess I wanted something that would wake me up. Also, as far as setting the alarm -- it displays incriments of hours and half-hours, so setting for anything inbetween is sort of a guessing game, but honestly it's not a huge deal. Again, as long as it wakes me up, do I really care?

So, to summarize:

Keywound alarm clock

Cons:

• Kind of loud (but there are clocks with a "soft" option)
  
• Energy used shipping it halfway around the globe, lead poisoning (get yours from USA if possible... or better yet, a thrift store!)
  
• Constant ticking may annoy some people/make them think you have a bomb in your suitcase
  

Pros: 

• No batteries, no plug, no electricity used to run it (post-production)
  
• Assuming it's of good quality, it'll run for years. Maybe it can even be fixed on the cheap
  
• Wakes me up!
  
• Constant ticking may be soothing to some people (it's not that loud, really, honestly)
  
• Lets me feel smug in the privacy of my own bedroom
  

In my opinion, totally worth it.

Cleaning on the cheap, without the poison or disposables

I'm trying to keep disposable things out of my life.  I guess you could technically recycle most plastic bottles these days, but it's ultimately better to avoid buying them in the first place.  Recycling is more of a "downcycling" process, creating a material that isn't as strong as the original.  (If you want to know the particulars, go pick up William McDonough's Cradle to Cradle.)

My inspiration, in case you were wondering, is Sustainable Dave, who made a new year's resolution in 2008 to reduce his material waste, and keep what he couldn't reduce.  The average American is estimated to produce something like 4.5 pounds of trash a day.  I don't even want to multiply that by 365.  Anyway, he's one of my eco-heroes, and if he could do it, so can I.

I've fought this battle on a few different fronts so far, but lately I've been in a skirmish with household cleaners.  First of all, if you want to clean anything these days, you need a special kind of cleaner for everything -- window cleaner, polish for the wood table, stain remover for the carpet and then for the clothes, different odor treatments for the bathroom, living room, and kitchen.  You end up having something like 15 or 20 spray bottles under the kitchen sink, and most of what's inside them is toxic.  

You got poison under your sink, and you already knew it, too!  But the thing they don't want you to know is that there are non-toxic and insanely cheap ways of making your own household cleaners.  I found out through rabid internet research, and an obsession with baking soda.  

The interest in baking soda began with the notion that it can be used to prevent a certain kind of infection that I'm susceptible to (but more on that later).

Then I started washing my hair with it.

Then I used it on a drain clog.

I think I officially became an eco-freak once I started washing my hair with it.  But I like it a lot better than the shampoo.  The thing that weirds me out about shampoo is that it dries my hair out so much that I need a conditioner for it to look healthy.  Now... if I buy something to clean my hair, which requires another product to fix the damage of the first product, that just makes me a little suspicious.  Why can't the darn thing just clean my hair right the first time?  Jeez.

With the baking soda, I just make a little paste and scrub it in, let it set while I wash the rest of me, and then rinse it out.  At first I was worried that it was leaving grease behind, but I just upped the dose the next time and it works fine.  

I've heard other shampoo substitutes, from corn flour (brushed into and out of dry hair) to brushing with a cheesecloth to... plain water.  Yep, plain water!  I think it takes some time for your hair to adjust, if you go that route.  Oh, and let's not forget the vinegar conditioning rinse, which is evidently fabulous for your hair and scalp.  (It reportedly stops smelling like vinegar once it dries... I may try that one myself and tell you what happens.)

The baking soda drain thing... sort of worked.  We have a slow drain in the shower.  I have read a whole medley of instructions on how to do this, but what I ended up doing was 2 tablespoons of baking soda, followed by 3/4 cup of white vinegar... the first time, I followed immediately with boiling water, the second time, I let it sit for 5-10 minutes before dousing with the boiling water.  The drain moves slightly faster now... I'm thinking it's all in the proportions.  The part that loosens the clog is the fizzy reaction between the acidic vinegar and the alkaline baking soda.  I've read a few sets of instructions with equal parts baking soda and vinegar, so I'll try that, and maybe 30 minutes of sitting time.

Anyway, there are loads of other things you can do with baking soda and vinegar.  Check out this list at tree hugging family.  Or this list at ecocycle.  And if you're really hardcore, and want to go beyond washing your hair... check out making your own toothpaste at eHow.com.  Arm & Hammer also has some tips, including washing your skin with baking soda (the grainy texture makes it a natural exfoliant).