Green gifting, good oil prices & organic ROI

Today’s weekly wrap-up tackles issues sure to raise hackles around family dinner tables, even those that are assiduously avoiding political conversation during the election year: Oil prices, green gifting and whether organic food is worth it.

The good and bad of high oil prices

This week, I came across a wrap-up for my wrap-up. Take a look at One Green Generation’s post on the pros and cons coming from high oil prices, and browse the articles that interest you.

I don’t know if we’ve changed our behaviors based on high oil prices, although I’m trying to squeeze more miles per gallon from my car, and Mr. Cheap has been driving his higher-mpg Toyota more than our Subaru this week. Then again, I work at home, so public transit isn’t really an issue, and the cost of public transit is more than the gas price of driving Little Cheap to school. How about you all? Are you changing your ways?

Giving & getting green gifts

The holidays are just around the corner … at least for those who are shopping ahead and planning to give homemade gifts. This week, The Green Parent wrote about how to give green gifts. I’ve done all of these — and it’s a great reminder that I need to start planning my holiday giving strategy now! I have a few things in mind, but for those things I need to craft, I’d better get cracking.

The cost-benefit analysis of organic food

The Simple Dollar wrote a post titled “Balancing Personal Principles and the Bottom Dollar: The Cost of Healthier Food” that, as I write this, has generated 67 arguments comments. There’s a ferocious battle out there over whether organic food is any good. It’s a complicated matter, and in the end, I think it’s a value judgment — and most of us have to go with our gut (and sometimes, our wallet!).

In my home, as we have become more committed to holding the earth more sacred, and at the same time a little more prosperous, we have shifted back to a high percentage of organic foods. Local is very important too, but I won’t promise to eschew chocolate, never eat a pineapple, give up bananas, or abandon citrus. But we are getting most of our vegetables from our CSA about 60 miles away, some from our backyard; virtually all the meat we are eating comes from our frozen beef that was raised within 100 miles; and I buy organic milk raised in northeastern Colorado, also within 100 or so miles of our home (and perhaps closer).

On the other hand, Mr. Cheap has developed a Pellegrino addiction … that I hope might wane as the hot weather disappears this fall.

It’s all about balance, and I wish you the same.

Waste not – my trip to Ecocycle

Last week, I wrote about my bathroom makeover. In addition to creating a nicer looking bathroom, our makeover created a ton of packaging waste.

Fortunately, I managed to get away with actually throwing away just a few twist ties, some strapping bands, and some painting material — tape and the like.

Here’s what the waste looked like in our living room after we finished unpacking:

(Yeah, it kind of looked blurry in real life too.)

The piles included:

• One huge box entirely filled with block Styrofoam.
• A great big stack of corrugated cardboard from the boxes themselves.
• Several sheets of instructions, etc.
• A variety of small plastic bags that contained screws and other hardware.
• A large shopping bag full of padded foam wrap.
• Several linear yards of plastic shrink roll — the stuff that straps two boxes together for shipping.

Here’s what I did with it:

• The sheets of paper went right into our city recycling bin.
• The plastic bags and plastic sheeting went into our plastic recycling, which I take over to our local grocery store every week.
• I spent 15 minutes, one morning with a box cutter, and cut the corrugated cardboard into pieces that fit into our city recycling bin.
• We delivered the shopping bag full of padded foam wrap to our local pack and ship store for reuse.

That left just the block Styrofoam. In addition to our big box, I had a small bag of block Styrofoam in my office closet. I’ve been saving it from various packages, along with plastic yogurt tubs that are not recyclable in our curbside recycling program.

I decided the time was ripe for a trip to EcoCycle in Boulder. EcoCycle is known as one of the most advanced recycling centers in the United States. In addition to municipal recycling programs in Boulder, they operate a Center for Hard to Recycle Materials (CHaRM).

That’s the recycling center in the picture at the top. You drive up next to a building, tell them what you have to recycle, and pay any necessary fees. (And only in Boulder is the garbage-station attendant cute, helpful and brainy.) My carload of Styrofoam cost me nothing to recycle. The yogurt tubs go directly into their single-stream recycling program. The only thing I had to pay to recycle was for three bicycle tires that I brought along. Those cost $.50 each, for a grand total of $1.50.

They had an ingenious system for recycling Styrofoam. I had to take my box and bag up the steps of this little platform. Beside the platform, they had strung up some giant plastic bags into which I dumped my Styrofoam.

After that, I drove to the dumpsters along the side and dropped off my materials in the appropriate bins. Then we were free — and is our responsibility and ready to run some other errands while we were in the area.

I wish we had such excellent recycling services in my city. But I am grateful that they at least exist within driving distance. Was it worth it to drive 30 miles to recycle the stuff? Probably, as long as I let it pile up and only go once a year or so. I learned that they also recycle milk and juice cartons and tetra-paks, so I have started a bag in my storage room for those materials.

How about you? How are your recycling services? What do you do when you have difficult-to-recycle materials?

Moving into jungle mode – garden update

Things are getting a little crazy in the garden.

I figured after the last few weeks of beautiful close-ups, I’d show you the ugly (and growing) truth. We tried so hard to space things well and leave plenty of room this year.

Really, we did!

But here you can see the Brussels sprouts in front (still with some elbow room), the green bean patch to the left, half covered with flowers and half covered with beans, and the Juliet tomato in the back taking over the territory. (Longtime readers will remember that last year’s Juliet tomato developed more than 100 feet of vines.) In addition to a poor shot of the wall and utility box, the compost bin, which is about waist high, can give you a sense of the scale.

That plant to the right, creeping in front of the compost bin? At first I thought it was a cucumber. In fact I even saw a baby cucumber on the plant, which is what gave me that impression. But now look at the size of those leaves. I think it’s a stowaway butternut squash. Perhaps there’s a cucumber plant hidden beneath it just to throw me off track.

To the left of the beans there is a novelty in our garden: a little path covered with a couple of books of hay. This path is a wonderful innovation, which give me space to pick beans yesterday.

Here is the other half of that bed. At the far left are the okra plants. I think they’re the only plant that have been enjoying our three weeks of 90-plus degree temperatures.

At the right side of this picture, beside the path, are five peanut plants. They are growing pretty well and have such beautiful green color.

And in the middle? That’s a tomato plant. It’s taking over almost as much as the Juliet is. The only difference? This particular tomato is a Roma. It’s supposed to be a determinate variety, which doesn’t grow very large. It doesn’t understand destiny, however, and has designs on taking over this bed.

Other than that, the story of the week is heat stress. This picture shows two sad, wilted little baby butternut squash. Most of the newly formed squash have not stayed on the vine long enough to open their flowers. That means no pollination, and of course, no squash. We have two nice hearty squash set on the vines, and we’re waiting to see what will happen this week, when the weather is forecast to be much more favorable. We also have one pumpkin set on our vine in the front yard, and we’re waiting on that too.

Paranoid Green Edition Friday Wrap-Up

The worst thing about being eco-conscious is learning about all the things you need to worry about. Here, for your convenience in one location, are a few of the latest:

Your kitchen counter

Granite counters are natural, right? That’s good. Unless they’re irradiating you. Check out this link at Green Daily for the rundown. I guess we must buy clean recycled counters … or have no kitchen at all.

Your car & your tot’s carseat

Yep, toxic — not only from the tailpipe, but from the materials inside. Worst off: Drivers of Mitsubishi, Suzuki and BMW models, and kids sporting a Britax or Alpha Sport seat. This one is also from Green Daily.

Your cell phone

They’re toxic to produce, toxic to dispose of, and now, more evidence that they shoot radioactive waves into brain tissue. Find the radiation rating of your phone on CNET. You can minimize the badness by using the speaker phone, a wired headset or (less good) a bluetooth headset. New research recommends kids not use ’em at all, because of their delicate little noggins (and quickly developing brain tissue). Try a can and string. Organic cotton string!

Your dry cleaner

Face it, you knew that organic dry cleaner on the corner was too good to be true. Sure, you can recycle the dry cleaning bag now. Take a look at the real scoop, courtesy of Fake Plastic Fish. If you live in San Francisco, you can just piggy back on her research and call up her cleaner for a little clean-green-delivering.

Your kid’s toys and your shower curtain

Green Daily is on it with more depressing news about phthalates. Not only are they chock full of the same rare consonant combination as the word “diphthong,” they are full of hormones that will turn boys into girly-men. Fortunately, Congress has passed a ban. Unfortunately, no one knows if Dubya will sign it.

Your tires

Not only are tires bad for the environment, they could be risking your life. Check out this post from Wise Bread about how to find out if your “new” tires have been sitting around for years.

What are your favorite things to be paranoid about? Let’s get worrying, people.