Clean+Green - a Miracle Cleaning Product for Pet Owners

I don't use the word miracle very often.  Truth be told, I didn't really believe in miracles until recently, when I got a package in the mail containing these two aerosol cans of Clean+Green cleaning products [legally, I have to disclose that they sent me free samples to review their product].  Even upon inspecting the cans, I was skeptical, especially since the directions instructed me to spray the mess and then do nothing, no wiping no blotting, nothing.  You can imagine, then, why I use the verbiage of a religious experience when I first had an opportunity to use this brilliant product and it worked better than anything else ever.  And when I say that it worked, I mean I didn't do a thing, the product literally did all of the work.

The word 'aerosol' in the last paragraph may scare some people, as CFCs which deplete the ozone have been used as aerosol propellants in the past.  But please, do not be alarmed, because CFCs are not the only effective propellants.  In fact, the folks at Clean+Green use nitrogen as their propellant, which does not deplete the ozone, is not a green house gas, and has no toxicity at all.  Nitrogen is already the most abundant element in our atmosphere, and spraying it out of a can has just about exactly zero impact on the environment.

The packaging of this product is almost entirely aluminum, which is not only 100% recyclable with very little loss or degradation of materials, it's vastly more energy efficient when recycled than when produced new (it has been estimated that recycling aluminum takes 5% of the energy of producing it from bauxite).  The remaining components are plastic, which is also recyclable (though less awesomely so).

[Update: I assumed the packaging was aluminum.  In fact, it is a pretty new and exiting process for making tin free steel aerosol cans, which is lighter (more fuel efficient to ship), made from two solid pieces with no welding (reducing the need for copper and water in manufacturing).  Steel is still 100% recyclable with almost no loss or degradation to the product in the recycling process.]


The most impressive thing about this product, however, is not that it works miracles with pet waste and odors, nor that it comes in recyclable packaging or uses nitrogen as its propellant, no.  The most amazing thing is that the cleaning agents are completely non-toxic as well.  No chlorine, no ammonia, no alcohol, no oxidants, it is not bleach based or enzymatic in nature, it is not even perfumed (aromatic compounds can irritate some people, especially those with severe allergies).  Everything that goes into this cleaner is biodegradable, and completely safe for pets (who have a tendency to lick interesting smells on the floor), kids, and the environment.

So in short, if I was prone to using a star system, this product would get as many as I can give.  It handled multiple different kinds of pet stains and odors from my dogs and my cats, leaving no residual smell or stains in carpets or upholstery.  We even tried it on an old ink stain on a sofa, and to our utter shock and amazement, it reduced the visibility of the stain significantly (they don't make any claims about ink though, so don't hold me or them to that).  Marry that performance with a non-toxic, biodegradable product packaged in recyclable materials, and you have one great, green product that I am happy to promote.  In shorter: Clean+Green is one of the best cleaning products I have ever used.

Looking Back and Forward after a Long Break

I am returning to my blog after another unplanned absence, and so I have been looking back over my posts to date.  I have been doing a lot of Dreaming of Less, and thinking about how to buy Nothing New.  But sometimes more is more, and something new is necessary.  A few green products have been brought to my attention in the past few months that I feel are really worth highlighting, and I intend to write them up in the coming month.

As important as it is to reduce the amount of new stuff that you buy, you can never eliminate the need for new stuff entirely.  So endorsing good, green products is an important part of promoting a green life style.  With that in mind, this February I will seek out as many great green products as I can, and promote them shamelessly.  Several have already fallen in my lap, one or two companies even approached me to write about them, but it was during my month of Nothing New, and so I decided to shelve it.  Since the holidays led right into starting a new job as a part time teacher for the Northwest Energy Education Institute (I am teaching a class on LEED), those products stayed on the shelf much longer than I had originally anticipated.

Being a teacher, by the way, is much harder in some ways and much easier in others than I had expected.  This is my first time teaching a class at an accredited college (NEEI is part of Lane Community College's Science Department), and I find the work to be incredibly engaging and fulfilling.  I also haven't dug this deeply into the text of the LEED rating system since I was first studying for the exam, so it has been a great way for me to further master this complex system.  I also really relish the notion that I am helping to shape an emerging group of green professionals.

Just wanted to let all my readers know that, although I am sorry I have been neglecting this blog for a while, it was for a good cause.

8 in a Million - a Quick Lesson in Atmospheric Science

Image via Wikipedia

Re-Posted from the iPinion Syndicate

It is widely known that the ozone layer, part of the stratosphere, filters ultraviolet radiation out of sunlight.  Without this filtering, life as we know it could not exist: UV light is much higher energy than visible sunlight: it breaks chemical bonds, excites particles and heats them up, and generally messes with everything that it touches.  So the ozone is pretty important.


A slightly lesser known fact, however, is that ozone makes up only about 40 parts per billion (ppb) of the earth’s atmosphere.  That means that for every billion molecules of gas in the air, only 40 are that special UV collecting combination of three oxygen atoms.  Even at its highest concentration, in the lower portion of the stratosphere which is named after it, ozone accounts for only about 8 parts per million (ppm).  Now, while that is an order of magnitude more concentrated than the rest of the atmosphere, it is still only 0.0008%.  And yet, this tiny, minuscule amount of O3 filters about 98% of the UV light that is emitted by the sun, thus saving the life of everything on earth every day.


Recently a skeptical acquaintance asked if I really believed in “that global warming stuff.”  I informed him that in fact I did, and he proceeded to ask me if I knew how much CO2 was actually in the atmosphere.  I did not have the number memorized, but I knew it was very small.  “Less than .05%” he informed me (to be a bit more precise, it is about 385ppm).  He continued “do you really expect me to believe that that tiny amount of stuff is going to change the temperature of the entire earth?”  Without quick access to my facts, all I could do was weakly say “yes, but I can’t really explain why right now.”


Well, now that I have been able to go back over my notes and do some more research, I can boldly say (and I hope my skeptical friend gets to read this) “yes, I expect you to believe it, because if such a tiny amount of gas couldn’t absorb so much energy, we would all be dead.”  If 8ppm of O3 can absorb 98% of UV energy, then is it really so hard to believe that 385ppm of CO2 could absorb a significant amount of the infrared energy that the earth emits?  Greenhouse gasses (GHGs) like CO2 absorb much of the earth’s energy, and they scatter it all around.  Some of it warms the atmosphere, some is emitted out into space, and some emitted back to the earth.  The more GHGs there are, the more of that energy is trapped and emitted back to the earth.


It has been estimated that in recent history the amount of CO2 in the atmosphere has increased by 2ppm every year, due almost entirely to humans burning fossil fuels.  That may not seem like much, but that means an increase of 8ppm (which, if you remember, is the maximum concentration of ozone) every four years.  I don’t think many climate scientists are suggesting that some catastrophic event is going to end the human race over night, or even in a decade or two, but it does seem reasonable that increasing green house gas emissions steadily over a long period of time will result, in that long period of time, in a warmer planet.


Just 8 ozone particles in a million units, just 0.0008% of gas molecules make this planet habitable.  In atmospheric science, numbers that tiny are not only significant, they tend to describe the most significant phenomena of all.

Kimchi, Sauerkraut and Chutney - the Art of Home Fermentation

Image by Getty Images via @daylife

There is something magical about homemade Sauerkraut, whether it is the European variety, the Korean Kimchi, or the Latin American Curtido, all of which are fermented at room temperature.  The first time you smell Kimchi, you may have serious doubts about its potential for human consumption.  Once you develop a taste for it, however, you begin to crave the funky, intense flavor of cabbage fermented with garlic, green onion, carrots and ginger.

The ingredients and the process for fermenting vegetables are simple, and the results are delicious and a little amazing.  The very concept that you could cut food up and leave it to 'spoil,' and then later eat it probably sounds like black magic to the modern American.  But fermented vegetables have developed independently in every human civilization around globe.  The modern American, in other words, is unique in the history of humanity in his diet of 100%  either fresh or pasteurized/preserved foods.

My foray into fermentation is very recent, prompted by the gift from a cousin of an alternative diet cookbook (which is equal parts fruity and fantastic, mixing good science with psuedo-science on almost every page, but full of wonderful gems), so I was surprised and somewhat validated by the November 22nd New Yorker which includes articles on fermented food in general and on sauerkraut specifically.  As Burkhard Bilger discusses in his article Nature's Spoils, our society's obsession with killing bacteria, thinking of all bacteria as pathogenic, has recently been recast as an extreme and sometimes detrimental view.  Some good science and a lot of appeals to down-homey common sense based on anecdotal evidence are used to suggest that a thriving population of non-pathogenic bacteria is essential to good health.  This argument is being used to promote a wide variety of foods and diets, from raw milk and dairy to raw food diets such as Primal Eating.

Image via Wikipedia

I personally am neither for nor against raw milk (though I think you should know the cow if you trust it not to be contaminated with listeria), look skeptically at any extreme diet, and believe that pasteurization is essential for industrial food production.  That being said, I am fully converted to simply fermented fruits and vegetables. Statistically speaking, they are much safer than raw milk or meat, their benefits have been studied a little more rigorously, and they are (lest we forget) delicious.  In fact, if prepared properly with due attention paid to temperature and the even distribution of salt, the likelihood of fermented vegetables carrying food born pathogens is almost nil.  In the taste department, if you have previously been soured to sauerkraut, you may have had commercially pickled cabbage, which is completely different in flavor, texture, and nutritional value from the traditional room temperature fermented variety.

Nothing could be simpler than fermenting vegetables.  All you have to do is add salt and sometimes water (vegetables should be covered in liquid, but their own juices often suffice), put it in an inert container (usually glass) and wait.  Three days is sufficient for most veggies, two will suffice for most fruits.  Without access to oxygen, lactic acid producing bacteria thrive and create a very low pH saline solution, destroying most other microorganisms.  The result is similar to yogurt in that it is full of bacteria that is good for you and totally devoid of bacteria that is harmful.  Speaking of yogurt, you can separate the liquids (whey) from yogurt by straining through a cloth and add a little of this liquid to the vegetables if you want to ensure the presence of healthy bacteria.  The solids which remain will be a light, fluffy cream cheese.

After one extremely successful experiment with Kimchi, I decided to attempt a fermented cranberry sauce for thanksgiving this year, and stumbled upon this lovely recipe for lacto-fermented cranberry chutney.  With just a little modification, I followed this recipe and the results were fascinating.  Initially too sour for some of the family (I used water instead of juice, that was a mistake), with the addition of a little extra sugar it pleased the whole crowd.  The fermentation process really makes the most of the aromatic cinnamon and clove, and I added the zest of a whole lemon (in one giant strip, not shredded) which also wonderfully infused the entire concoction.

Food production has become a complicated hydra of health and safety issues, with compelling arguments for and against every practice yet imagined or implemented.  In this jungle of information there is something extremely satisfying about stumbling across a home process as simple and fool proof as fermenting.  Follow the rules and you get consistently healthy and delicious results.  It is also a cheap and energy efficient way to preserve summer crops through the whole winter, as fermented veggies can last for months in the fridge (or even root cellar in cooler climates) with no negative impact to their nutritional value or flavor.

If there is any cabbage to be found at the winter farmer's market here in Eugene, I am bound to be making a large batch of sauerkraut in the very near future.  If not, however, I don't really see the point of fermenting conventional vegetables.  The process depends upon the presence of live lactic acid producing bacteria.  If you can't be sure whether the vegetables have been irradiated or not, then you can't trust them to ferment properly.  By law, fruits and veggies cannot be labeled organic if they have been irradiated, so organics are still worth the effort.

Weekend Meal Planning - Creating All your Meals for the Week in One Day

The key to eating healthy home made food when you have a busy schedule is planning.  Sitting down on the weekend and spending 20 minutes planning your meals for the week, and then doing as much cooking and preparation as you can on Saturday or Sunday will save you hours of planning and cooking for the rest of the week.  This method has lots of other unintended benefits as well, and the more you develop a routine the more you will see those benefits: less waste, less stress, less expense, more healthy diet.

For some time now, Courtney and I have tried to make a weekly menu before going shopping, starting ingredients that are already in the fridge or pantry.  We  write this list on a white board in the kitchen, and then write in the date that leftovers were made.  Since instituting this simple process, I think we take out the trash about 1/2 as often.  Here is what our whiteboard often looks like

Our Home Kitchen Menu

If you can avoid prepackaged meals and refrain from eating out for convenience sake (I love eating out, but only when I choose to treat myself), you can save a lot of money while gaining more control over your diet.  If you try to plan and cook a meal every night, however, you can quickly become overwhelmed and throw in the towel.

When we decided to do the October: Unprocessed challenge last month, we realized that with our busy schedules we were not going to be able to cook most week nights.  Eating out is expensive, but eating healthy and unprocessed foods out is phenomenally expensive.  In order to meet the challenge and maintain our savings (what little we have) Courtney and I turned our kitchen into a high efficiency food production facility every Sunday last month, and generally produced enough food in one day to last all week (that is why several of the menu items above have the same date by them).  Spending several hours doing intensive cooking is also significantly more efficient in terms of waste and energy.  For example, one Sunday, I made a frittata and Courtney cooked cornbread and pumpkin muffins, all at the same time.  The oven only heats up once, and there was one temperature change half way though, but over all we had 6 meals worth of food with one meals worth of oven time.

You may think that it would take more energy to refrigerate and freeze all that food, but in fact the opposite is true.  The more full your fridge or freezer is, the more efficient it will be.  Your fridge works hardest when you open the door, because all of the air it has cooled down escapes, and warm air rushes in.  The more stuff you have in the fridge, the less warm air can fill the space.  Also, the cold food will help to cool the air, so the actual heat pump doesn't have to work quite as hard.

Our menu over the past few weeks has been pretty extravagant, but our costs and time commitment have been relatively low.  We have been eating even less meat, and we feel free to experiment with more ambitious recipes and ideas (this week we plan on making kimchi).  One of the keys is making things which are not any more work when scaled up in volume, like soups stews and sauces.  The first week we did this, I made a tomato sauce from scratch.  A portion was sweetened and turned into pizza sauce that day, the rest was frozen and used variously as the base for enchilada sauce, a pasta sauce, and to make lasagna.

Homemade Tomato Sauce and Pizza with bell pepper and lobster mushrooms

For the rest of the week, Courtney and I are happy to come home and simply reheat our delicious and nutritious food, to wake up and grab left overs on the way out the door.  We find we spend less on groceries, since we tend to buy fewer items that can be used for several recipes, and that means less food spoils as well.

We have greatly enjoyed our Sunday cooking days, and hope that it will provide good practice for the extra work that a growing family will (eventually) bring.  Also, we are hosting a (very tiny) Thanksgiving here in Eugene for the first time, and our Sunday cooking experiments should serve as good practice for coordinating a large group meal.

Related articles

• Food Allergies & The Holidays (wholefoodsmarket.com)

The Meat in the Vegetarian Argument

As part of October: Unprocessed, and leading up to my guest post on Eating Rules later this month, I thought it would be appropriate to re-post this piece, which details some of the issues of food as it relates to sustainability.

Re-Posted from the iPinion Syndicate

You may have heard that being vegetarian is green.  You may also have had a vegan activist tell you that meat is murder and you are killing the planet.  While there is definitely some truth to the argument that a vegetarian diet is a little more earth friendly, there is a little devil in the details.


The issues of food production are numerous, from health and humanity to environmental impact and sustainability.  Which issue is most important to you probably depends on a number of factors: your age, location, political views, etc.  By and large, however, beef does not fare well in any serious analysis of food issues.  At least, not conventional beef that is fattened in a concentrated feed lot.

If global warming and climate change are your primary concerns, you’ll be happy to hear that feed lot beef and dairy are the only things that you need to strike off your menu.  Chicken, fish and eggs are comparable to vegetables in green house gasses emitted during production and transport.  Speaking of fish, however, is opening a whole other can of worms.


If sustainability is what you are after, a lot of sea food is out: over fishing is stressing stocks all over the world, and aside from a few species that are managed responsibly (wild pacific salmon, e.g.) most edible fish populations are dropping at a staggering rate.  Seafood doesn’t fare well on the health test either; electronics, fluorescent bulbs and industrial practices have contaminated most seafood populations with levels of mercury that are dangerous for human consumption.


If you are a card carrying member of PETA, or sympathetic to their cause, chicken and eggs are back on the black list.  On the humanitarian scale, chicken production is much, much worse than just about anything else out there.  Feed lot beef is not much better.  If humanitarian concerns are foremost in your mind, you should probably explore expensive alternatives to conventional food at a specialty or kosher butcher shop.  If you can’t afford that, then meat is out.


If health is what you are thinking about, then a strictly vegetarian diet might not be a good idea at all.  Many people develop anemia, iron deficiency, or other issues when not eating meat, and careful management of protein and iron intake is essential for a healthy meatless diet.  Pescatarians (a word I am not entirely comfortable with, I’ll have you know) can get around this quite easily, as salmon and mollusks like clams provide massive doses of protein and iron in tiny portions.  But again, mercury is a real threat which much be considered constantly.  Farmed clams are better, but farmed salmon are terrible: they are fed other fish from depleting stocks and foul up coastal waters with concentrated waste.


Here is something that your vegan acquaintances will not be quick to point out, however: grass fed and grass finished cows are better in every way.  On the humanitarian angle, they are demonstrably healthier and ostensibly happier (in so far as we can tell these things).  They produce less methane (a green house gas) and foul up less water during their lives.  They are wildly healthier for you, with little saturated fat and more omega 3 fatty acids than salmon.  Finally, their waste is not concentrated like feed lot cows, which means that it can be absorbed naturally by the environment they are raised in.


In summation, if all of the issues in this article are important to you, you probably should be vegan.  However, if you are willing to do your food homework and buy the right products, you can put the vegan argument out to pasture with the grass fed cows.

Related articles

• Simon Fairlie: How Eating Meat Can Save the Planet (time.com)

To Dream of Less Stuff

Stuff, it sometimes seems, is who we are.  We produce it and measure our worth in its production.  We buy and sell it and measure our success in its exchange.  We own it, use it and replace it, and measure our happiness in its possession and acquisition.  We often confuse obtaining more stuff with bettering ourselves, so new stuff becomes equated with self-improvement.
And yet, if all that is true, we seem to be ignoring some important parts of ourselves.  What does it say, for example, that so much of our stuff is disposable?  Having no longevity, no staying power, sacrificing quality for convenience.

What does it say that we have so much stuff built for one and only one purpose?  Our kitchens and closets are cluttered with highly specialized gadgets, many of which are used only once a month, or even once a year. I don't doubt the convenience of a food processor, but do we need a blender, an immersion blender, a food processor, a juicer, a mortar and pestle, a mandolin, spice grinder, coffee grinder, and a Magic Bullet?  Every house has an oven, yet we feel the need to augment this with a toaster oven, microwave, bread maker, crock pot, and pressure cooker.  Any one of these items is perfectly reasonable, but is it reasonable to have all of them?

What does it say about us that we always want everything to be brand new?  As soon as something develops its first nick or mar, it begins to bother us, to weigh heavily on our subconscious as if the mar were a blemish on our very souls.  Nothing we own is allowed to have any history, any meaning beyond itself.  Nothing is allowed the taint of a previous owner, nor any significance beyond its immediate purpose.

In the last month, I have come to realize that it is exceedingly rare that we actually need new stuff.  When we challenge our selves just a little, we find that we can use things which are marred, we can fix things which are broken, we can buy things which have been owned by a stranger before us, and we can even make smoothies and pesto without a Magic Bullet.  Most amazing of all, when we challenge ourselves, we find that sometimes, we can even do without.

Just as I have been dreaming of less for so many other things, I have been dreaming of less stuff.  Less clutter, less trash, less hassle, less mess.  I have been dreaming of things which serve many purposes, eliminating the need for other stuff.

I have been dreaming of buying everything used which can be bought used.  I dream not just of less stuff in my home, but in the human world as a whole, and second hand goods eliminate the need for more new stuff.  In a sense, an item can be divided by the number of people who have owned it, so that I own 1/5 of a couch, 1/4 of a dining set, 1/3 of a coffee table, 1/6 of an armchair.

I have been dreaming, longingly, of storage spaces that are clearly organized, free of clutter, full without being stuffed.  I dream of all my spaces being clear of stuff, the surfaces in my house being almost empty when not in use.  I dream of having one of everything I need and none of anything I don't.

I dream of a life which is occupied by a small amount of highly useful, durable, beautiful stuff that I love to use, to look at, to care for.  I dream of meeting my every need with as little material as possible, and not coveting that which I do not need.  I dream of a home in which all of my stuff improves my quality of life, and anything which does not is banished forever from my home.

Courtney and I have been moving actively toward this dream for some time now, and after many purges of stuff followed by periods of buying nothing new, we have achieved a level of stuff which is well bellow average, but there is much work left to be done before we are living the dream that we are dreaming.  The journey, so far at least, has been liberating and joyous, and the less we use to meet our needs (both real and invented) the better we feel about our stuff.

Related articles

• You: The Minimalist: The Food Processor: A Virtuoso One-Man Band (nytimes.com)

Lane County Farmers' Market, FTW!

Image via Wikipedia

Fall is special for many reasons here in the Pacific North West, but my favorite thing about fall is that I can finally make all of my LA friends jealous of the Farmers' Markets up here.  Sure, you get tomatoes year round, but you ain't got nothin' on North West Mushrooms.  That's right, it's mushroom season big time here in Oregon, and there is no better place to be when mushroom season rolls around.

Aside from the abundance of obvious, well known 'shrooms that grow wild all over the Willamette Valley (chanterelles, maitakes, and truffles, to name a few. . . ooooh truffles), the climate is also perfect for some lesser known and truly delicious delicacies.   Today I picked up a few, including the chicken of the woods, which believe or not actually tastes and has a texture similar to chicken.  Also, I grabbed a few lobster mushrooms, which aside from being red on the outside and white on the inside, actually have a distinct seafood flavor that lends them their name.

Chicken of the Forest - actually tastes like chicken

Lobster Mushroom - actually tastes like lobster

There was much talk today amongst strangers at the market about how best to cook these delectable fungi, sauteed in butter or tossed in a pasta e.g., but my favorite thing to do with just about any mushroom is make risotto, which I will surely be doing this weekend, as it fits nicely with the October: Unprocessed challenge.  For a basic risotto recipe, see my post on Wild Mushroom Risotto from last year.  The wonderful thing about this dish is that the risotto provides a rich creamy base that supports the mushroom flavor, lifts it to the fore and lets it shine.  The slight crunch of al dente rice is also a nice backdrop for the unique textures that the variety of wild mushrooms have to offer.  This is not a dish for the feint of heart, but for those with clear arteries and good exercise routines, it is the ultimate in sinful savory satisfaction.

Nothing New except October: Unprocessed

As the sun sets on my Month of Nothing New, it dawns on October: Unprocessed.  The last month went by rather quickly and uneventfully in terms of my challenge, and after thinking it through, I have decided that one month of making no new purchases (excluding food and medicine) is just too easy.  It was not really a challenge at all.  There were a few minor hiccups, but not one real sense of sacrifice or brilliant solution to a difficult problem.  In short, it was not the fodder for good writing that I had hoped it would be.  All this has led me to the conclusion that I should extend the challenge, keep it going for perhaps six months.  In half a year, I am bound to run into a number of problems that force me to consider breaking the rules, and probably doing it at least once.

Take the Pledge!  Learn More Here.

In the next month, however, I will focus on the October: Unprocessed pledge, and so I will probably be writing a little more about food.  Two things cropped up in September, however, that I felt it would be inappropriate to post in my month of nothing new, so keep your eyes open this October for news about the Unprocessed Pledge and a special treat for my readers.  As I promised at the beginning of last month, the next installment of To Dream of Less will be out soon.  Also, if you don't know about October: Unprocessed, check it out!  Click on the logo above, take the pledge, you still can, join up any time in October and finish the month with Eating Rules, myself, and about 30 other bloggers who have taken the Pledge and agreed to write about it on Andrew Wilder's site.

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• Blogger Kicks Off A Month Without Processed Foods (dinersjournal.blogs.nytimes.com)

Waste Not

Image via Wikipedia

Re-posted from the iPinion Syndicate

After writing about buying second hand goods, I got a few comments about giving to thrift stores, selling to stores like Crossroads, and having a garage sale to get rid of stuff instead of just throwing it away.  After all, as I am sure you have heard many times by now, there is no ‘away.’  Or rather, ‘away’ is the ocean, landfills and incinerators.


‘Away’ is not so far away as you would like, and bits of what you throw away find their way back to you (like the mercury in seafood).  The bits that don’t find their way back still might be affecting you in some other manner: by disrupting a food source, permanently damaging some piece of land, or being incinerated and mucking up your air.


There is a lot of waste in our society.  For the identifiable past of ‘western civilization,’ we have always thought of things in terms of raw materials, useful products, and waste to be dealt with.  But only in the past century and a half has the amount of waste been such a huge and universal problem.  Today, we generate so much waste that even though we burn and bury the majority of it, it is clogging our streams, rivers, ports and even making a significant impact on every sea and ocean on the planet.  If this were intentional, it would be quite an accomplishment.  Unfortunately, it is a destructive and unintentional consequence of simply not paying enough attention to how much waste we generate and how we deal with it.


Now for the bad news: there is very little that you can do about it.  At least by yourself, right now.  You can recycle, and that is great.  It really helps.  Unfortunately, most things are not easily recyclable, and no municipality in this country has a 100% recycling rate for the things that are.

Image via Wikipedia

You can reuse stuff instead of throwing it away.  You can (as mentioned above) sell or give old stuff away and buy other stuff second hand.  This keeps stuff out of land fills and incinerator, and also reduces the need for manufacturing, packaging and shipping of more new stuff.  But some things are never going to be available second hand, like food and cleaning products; nor should they be.


Finally, you can reduce the amount of stuff you buy.  Maybe.  Depending on the stuff.  And you can consciously choose to buy stuff with less packaging.  Sometimes.  When there is an option.  The fact is, the current paradigm embraces the old ‘raw materials, stuff, waste’ mind set wholeheartedly, and almost everything comes packaged in layers and layers of waste.  And all that is not even the worst part, not by half.


The worst part is that before the stuff even got to the store, massive amounts of water and materials were turned into waste in the manufacturing process, and you as an individual right now have absolutely no power over that at all.  Except...


 There is one more thing that you can do that begins with ‘r,’ though it isn’t part of the traditional waste hierarchy: research.  You can try to find out about the stuff you are buying, how it is produced, and vote with your dollars.  So the good news is that we as the consumers (not individuals), over time (not right now), can try as often as possible to choose the less wasteful option, and that will make a difference.  Because the more dollars that flow to low waste products, the more pressure there will be for a paradigm shift, from ‘materials, stuff, waste,’ to ‘materials, stuff, materials, stuff, materials...’  There is a growing field called industrial ecology that is preparing the new paradigm, and if we all push together, we can get this boulder rolling in their direction.