The Carey Adventures » Project RRR

Project Reduce Resource Requests – Week 3 update

Peter West Carey — Thu, 18 Sep 2008 04:32:31 +0000

Another slow week. But slow in a good way. I haven’t gone out of my way to get a lot of stuff and a lot of my action has been in not jumping on the impulse buys. And for the record, food doesn’t count in this little game, so all those Newman Os I bought are safe. :)

This Week:

Refused bags left and right
Kim and I biked to pick up Sabrina from school one day and then rode the bus home
Sabrina and I rode the bus to school one day (her school doesn’t have busses, so this was a county bus)
Printed out Sabrina’s party invites on some random paper we had instead of buying new invites
Emailed half the people for Sabrina’s party instead of invites
We’ve been using old checks for 3 years now. These are from a former, former, former residence but for sending in payments, as long as the routing and account number are correct, that’s all that matter for most. Haven’t order checks in years
Enrolled in “Paperless Statements” for a number of accounts
Resisted the urge to order return address labels. I mean, how hard is it to write out your address? It helps that we don’t have a lot of bills that require postage.
Bought a used video card on eBay after mine died

Onward!

Project Reduce Resource Requests – Week 2 update

Peter West Carey — Thu, 11 Sep 2008 18:08:16 +0000

It’s time for the week 2 update! For those new to the game, here’s the original post. I’m a day late, but I’m sure if I didn’t mention it, no one would notice. :) I honestly didn’t concentrate this week on reducing requests as other distractions came in.

Built a tire swing for Sabrina using a ripped tire from the Defender and my old rappelling rope.
Eat apples from our own yard. In this case, it’s luck that we have mature apple trees at the rental. We made some juice and have been eating them most days.
Doubling up items in Sabrina’s lunch bags. This may seem odd, but it used to be I’d put stuff in each bag (sandwich, grapes, apple slices, etc…). More things get doubled up thus less bags.
Used grocery bags for garbage. We’ve been doing this for a long time. It seems odd to buy bags just to throw away when they hand them out at the store. I know, plastic bags are evil, but I’m not quite to the point of cleaning out the can all the time.
Boots sent in for repair came back. (see previous post)
Took in more donations.
The shower thing is working well. Might be different in the winter when it’s colder. Once that hot water ain’t spraying, it gets cold quick.
I think getting the AT tires on the Suburban is really helping (except for the part where one came off while I was driving!). It’s past 110 miles and the needle hasn’t moved down from F. Normally at around 85 miles it has moved. Could just be the gauge is broke, so I’ll wait on that.
Kim did some more thrift store shopping ($5 bag tuesdays at Good Cheer)

Onward!

I Sure Miss Bananas

Peter West Carey — Sun, 07 Sep 2008 23:21:15 +0000

I love bananas. And that’s a problem for two reasons. I’ll get to those in a minute, but first I wanted to let it be know that I personally have nothing against bananas and would love to be eating one right now.

But I won’t. One reason is the discovery of a food allergy to bananas. This was not found the normal scratch your skin testing kinda way. It was from a pricey blood test, but it was worth it. Knowing what foods drag down my immune system has helped me in staying healthy all summer (I know, I know, it’s just summer…..we’ll see what happens when Sabrina’s back in school and then it’s winter).

Second is in line with my Project Reduce Resource Requests. My decision to stop eating bananas was actually a precursor to the project. I was really having a hard time fathoming requiring a fruit be shipped all the way up from Costa Rica or Ecuador just because I liked it. I don’t need them, no one requires a banana a day to live. So it was a choice. When viewed at that angle, I realized I didn’t want to keep requesting more and more bananas be shipped up here.

You may think I hate a global economy or that I only wish my food to come from within 100 miles as some people do. Both of those thoughts would be wrong. I don’t really think that much or strive for greatness that way. I have nothing against people who grow bananas (although I have a problem with non organic methods after visiting banana farms in Costa Rica). I just don’t need them shipped up here. I can find my nutrients elsewhere, like avocados which only need to be shipped from California. :)

But seriously, I’ve taken to reevaluating a lot of my food requests and find I don’t need fruit from far flung places just because it tastes good. Nor do I need water from Fiji (oh brother!) It might mean I’ll eat a bit more bland greens at every meal. Although, in Washington, we are blessed with good hops for beer and good grapes for wine. I’ll be ok after all.

Project Reduce Resource Requests – Week 1 update

Peter West Carey — Wed, 03 Sep 2008 19:33:01 +0000

As mentioned in a post last week, I’m working on decreasing the amount of non-renewable resources I request. And here I am at the first weekly update! Not a lot to report this week, mostly stuff I’m resisting purchasing:

Sent in boots to be repaired instead of buying new ones (they shouldn’t have come apart anyway)
Took less showers. This is not glamorous, but as I didn’t have a lot of appointments outside the house, I got lazy.
Resisted the urge to buy a new camera even though they are reaaalllly cool.
Hooked up TV to a power strip that is off most of the time, reducing energy consumption minutely.
Hooked up main power hog computer and internet equipment to timed power strip. All that stuff shots off while we sleep, cutting energy use by 1/3. I know it’s not a lot, but it’s something.
Donated a LOT of stuff from moving houses. Along with reducing resource requests, I feel it’s important to increase renewable resource requests. While used stuff isn’t technically "renewable" as in it can’t go on forever, having ample used clothes, furniture, books, etc. out there helps others buy used. And Kim does a FANTASTIC job of always shopping thrift stores for most all of our household and clothes needs. If we get new clothes, they come from our parents and are usually for Sabrina. (although I have to admit to buying two pairs of organic hemp swim shorts 3 weeks ago, but I’ve been living in them ever since!)
Didn’t buy one thing from Amazon this week! This one is really hard for me because I love the Amazon Prime Oneclick button. Sooooo easy to get stuff shipped free to your door in two days.
Got back my GPS which was repaired. They actually sent me a refurbished unit and I’d like to think they’ll repair the old one, but I can’t confirm this. I really wanted to buy one of the newer ones, but mine worked and it was less money to repair.
Went biking with flip flops for 19 miles and did fine. I thought I’d really need boots or shoes (see previous bullet about boots)and have been meaning to buy some, but putting it off. I’m happy to note, you can bike in flip flops just fine! Sometimes the weeds on the side of the road whack your open toes a bit, but other than that….
Kim regularly declines bags when shopping, either bringing her own as a lot of people around here do now, or just carrying the stuff out.
Because of where we live, Kim was able to walk to an appointment in town instead of driving.

On to next week!

Project Reduce Resource Requests – Introduction

Peter West Carey — Wed, 27 Aug 2008 23:27:06 +0000

Hi there! This is a crazy I got after my brother sent me a link to the Compact. It’s not a cult, it’s a bunch of people who decided for a year to not buy anything new (except food, medicine and some other true essentials). It seems like a good idea and I like most of the frame work, so I’m starting my own project slightly alligned with that concept, calling it Project Reduce Resource Requests.

The concept in my mind is simple, so forgive me if I can’t articulate it properly. I’m tired of most of my purchases requiring more and more new stuff. Most of the time, it’s not needed. Most of the time, all the packaging with stuff isn’t needed. This isn’t an attack on plastics or this or that, it’s a general desire to reduce my requests for new items to be produced.

You may think, “well, if everyone did this, the economy would implode with no new items being created!!”, while in actuality I don’t care. For me, I can make an itty bitty small difference by reducing my requests for new items to be made. I can stop creating more demand and I can in fact, create a demand for used items and for more people to reuse items in a regard. So I’m not worried about the economy or its collapse as this is not a large action I’m requiring everyone to do. It’s just for me. Heck, I’ll be fine with Kim not even giving it a whirl either. It’s just one man’s attempt to reduce impact on finite resources.

To that end I plan on posting a weekly run down of what I’ve done the past week to reduce resource requests. I’m not shooting for some Utopia where everything I do doesn’t require new items, I’m ok with some give and take (such as I bought new tires for the truck today as safe, reliable transport is highly important to me especially when my family is involved). Maybe my ego just needs a boost once in a while, otherwise I’d keep this private. Or maybe it feels like there is someone out there policing me (there isn’t, I hope) to keep me honest. Either way, there it is.

One thing different from the Compact that I find acceptable is increased request in renewable resources when it replaces a nearly equal amount of non-renewable resources. In my mind, this IS a large shift society as a whole can take to help make a big change. In my case, it’s things like using biodiesel and wind power.

Here are some of the recent changes and actions I’ve taken to reduce my resource requests:

Wore the same shorts for 3 days in a row (I didn’t say all changes would be glamorous). This goes hand in hand with keeping things clean so they don’t need to be washed as often, reducing requests for water, soap, energy and time to clean stuff.
Turned on the timer on the hot water heater for the house and set it to a narrow band from 1:45pm-9:45pm. (reduction in new energy requests)
Will buy insulation for hot water heater, further reducing energy needs
Avoided buying a new plasma TV even though it was cool. My 17 year old TV still works fine, even thought it’s not as cool.
Started taking ‘ship board’ showers….turning off the water when not rinsing.
Started drying off with a hand towel instead of bath towel. And using it more than once. I get just as dry while using 1/3 of the square feet of towel, meaning much less laundry (reduction in time doing laundry and water/soap/energy to wash and dry).
Declined a paper bag at the hardware store for the 5 packs of wall anchors I bought. I brought them up to the counter in my hand, I can take them to the truck in my hand.
Filled up with 27.5 gallons of B20 biodiesel, reducing a request for 5.5 gallons of non-renewable #2 diesel. (note: I don’t agree with the current state of getting biodiesel from soybeans, especially not as a long term, large scale replacement for petroleum diesel. But for now, it helps create an increase in research for other, better feedstocks, like algae, but that’s for another post).
Got new tires, an oil change, transmission service and radiator flush on the truck, which should help increase fuel economy and reduce requests for fuel. I switched from a mud terrain tire to an all terrain tire which should also give better handling and safety. Current MPG of the Suburban is 13.1 MPG.

Next update in a week!