The Personal is Political*

So, I took a leap today into a bit of a controversial realm in my blog @ work. Yes, I know you aren’t supposed to talk about politics on a first date or at work. But, since I do talk about politics on the first date, I might as well also talk about it at work.

I was also feeling particularly rilled up since I haven't gotten a lot of participation in my blog from my colleagues. I decided to try a little something different. You may read below and say - "This really isn't that controversial, Colleen." Remember though, that my company really just started a concerted effort to be more sustainability 3 or so months ago. So everything is new and potentially controversial....

In any case, read on and let me know what you think....

The title of my blog is borrowed from an essay written during the Women’s Liberation movement of the 60s and 70s*. I bring it up today because I think the idea is compelling when thinking about the modern environmental movement.

Often when I open my big mouth about the environment, I get into conversations about whether any one person taking action to be more sustainable is a worthwhile pursuit. Some argue that the fact that someone composts and recycles really isn’t going to save the planet. It has to be, some argue, governments and industry making drastic changes in the way they do things to really make a difference.

First, yes, I agree that governments and industry need to take big steps. But I also strongly believe in individual action in each person’s life. Governments and industry won’t change without the influence of individuals. And, I’ve seen in myself how living a more personally sustainable life has taught me about greater global environmental issues. It has made me a more informed voter and political being. And it has made me more vocal and active. After all, I’m writing this blog in hopes of helping to educate, aren’t I? I’m pretty sure that I would never have been doing this unless I had taken those first steps to stop eating meat after measuring my environmental footprint and seeing the impact of the production of meat. (I now recognize this is a more complicated issue than it seems, and I do eat some non-red free-range meat for various reasons. But I still think this first step was an important part of my personal environmental journey).

Sometimes, I wonder if by saying “government and business need to fix themselves for anything to really improve”, it leads us to just give up. It makes the situation seem so insurmountable.On the other hand, wach little action I take to make my life more environmentally-friendly makes me more convinced that others (including the government and industry) can successfully face the challenges of sustainability. I see that each change I make encourages others to make their own changes. Hopefully I start my own small-scale “pay-it-forward” movement for the environment. And maybe each of these people will also become more politically active and join the greater movement to influence change in larger institutions.

If this discussion is interesting to you, I highly recommend No Impact Man’s blog. Colin Beavan has taken being personally sustainable to the next level – he gives me an ideal to strive toward. It is definitely a fave on my Google Reader (yes, I like it even more than Valleywag).

And if you are ready to be a little more politically active about sustainabilty and the environment, check out where each presidential candidate stands on the environment.

*From an essay of the same name by Carol Hanisch

Be Green and Clean

After starting my blog last week, I got a lot of questions from fellow colleagues. It's clear a lot of them had been thinking about being more green, but just weren't sure how to go about it. It reminded me that helping people find the resources to be more green should be an important part of my blog. So, here's a first stab at that....

I noticed that a lot of the questions I got were about cleaning, so I decided to pull some resources about all types of cleaning together.

FYI, I've made these changes in my actions below and found them very easy to implement.

Wash your clothes in cold water. According to a recent IdealBite tip, 80-90% of your energy used on laundry goes to heating the water - that's $61 on average per household for washing in hot rather than cold.

• If you are worried about adequately dissolving your powder detergent, just put the hot on for a few minutes at the beginning of the load and then switch to cold.
  Or do one load of very soiled clothes in hot and lone of those less soiled in cold --- cutting down by half is better than nothing.
  

Dry Clean Less and/or In a More Environmentally Friendly Way. Perc, a major chemical used in dry cleaning, is a huge environmental contaminent of up to 10% of the states wells and the EPA even says it is a possible to probable carcinogen. Even some dry cleaning technology without Perc has effects.

• First, buy fewer clothes that require dry cleaning. It's such a pain to drop off and pick up stuff anyway, right?
• For those times that you must dry clean:
  Try an environmental dry cleaner. Try Pressed Cleaners in SF or Blue Sky Cleaners - it picks up and drops off @ your home in the Peninsula and South Bay (including our Menlo Park office).
• Ask for no plastic covers and return your wire hangers to your dry cleaners for re-use. If they won't even do these 2 things, find another dry cleaner.
  

Buy environmentally friendly cleaning products. Most are not only better for the environment but better for you (with less toxic chemicals). For instance, lots of traditional laundry detergents have petroleum in it -- yup that's right OIL! Do you really want that? And those chemicals in your detergent go straight into sources of drinking water. 69% of streams in the US contain disinfectants and detergent metabolites.

• Personally I use Seventh Generation for most all of my cleaning products from laundry detergent to upholstery cleaner. I love all of them and feel they work very well. You can find where they are sold on their website.
• A new SF-based enviro friendly cleaning supply company is Method. They have some strong net promoters amongst my friends. And they are often available in more traditional stores like Walgreens and Target.
• And our famous Elaine, who most of you know, launched Clorox's brand new line of green products.

Clean less and/or with fewer products. No, I don't expect anyone to wear dirty, smelly clothes, but you can easily do without some cleaning to save water and energy.

• Wash your car as little as possible. According to Green Earth, a typical car wash uses between 20 to 45 gallons of water per car. A home wash can use between 80 and 140 gallons. Wouldn't that water be better used to make sure we have enough water to drink?
  If you really can't deal with the "wash me" words written on your car, try a waterless car wash like Green Earth or Eco Touch.
  
• Fill your dish washer fully before you run it and wash as few other dishes and kitchen utensils by hand. And turn off the hot dry cycle.
  
• Ditch the Swiffer for a re-usable microfiber mop. I bought mine @ Target, but found this one on Amazon. You can just throw the microfiber mop head in the laundry with your other laundry and avoide creating waste of disposable swiffer refills.
  
• Get a green house cleaning service. WAGES bills itself as eco-friendly and provides jobs for low income women (this one I can't vouch for since my small apartment requires no outside help).
  

AND......Find more ideas on the TreeHugger site.....

Inauguration

Welcome to my first blog entry....ever!

Hi all - this is the external version of my internal work blog that I started to support my company's sustainability initiative. The purpose of my blog @ work is to create another tool for communicating with my colleagues about my work on the sustainability initiative and the things I learn in the process. I'll have to sanitize some of the information due to confidentiality -- but hopefully your might find some of this information insightful!

And as I say for my blog @ work, I welcome comments, suggestions, corrections, and additional information. I am BY FAR not an expert on this, but I'd like to take you all on my Green journey. And it is a journey - making gradual changes is the way to really make lasting change in your life!

And since this is a New Year, I am going to start my blog with My Green New Year's Resolutions:

1. Be a smarter consumer. I'm using Co-op America's Ten Things You Should Never Buy Again and Five More Things to Never Buy Again lists to get started.

2. Dedicate time to helping others be more green...which is why I am writing this blog.

3. Be more aware of what is going on in sustainability and green in the world. I've started by signing up for TreeHugger's RSS feed in my Google Reader. TreeHugger describes itself as, "the leading media outlet dedicated to driving sustainability mainstream. Partial to a modern aesthetic, we strive to be a one-stop shop for green news, solutions, and product information. At TreeHugger we know that variety is the spice of life, so you can find all you need to go green in our up to the minute blog, weekly and daily newsletters, weekly video segments, weekly radio show and our user-generated blog, Hugg. We also extend our expertise to companies looking for a little green guidance. Past clients include Domino, Sundance Channel and House & Garden. "

So, if you'd like to support my Green 2008 and join me on this trip, please keep reading!